8,056 research outputs found
A Simulator for LLVM Bitcode
In this paper, we introduce an interactive simulator for programs in the form
of LLVM bitcode. The main features of the simulator include precise control
over thread scheduling, automatic checkpoints and reverse stepping, support for
source-level information about functions and variables in C and C++ programs
and structured heap visualisation. Additionally, the simulator is compatible
with DiVM (DIVINE VM) hypercalls, which makes it possible to load, simulate and
analyse counterexamples from an existing model checker
MELT - a Translated Domain Specific Language Embedded in the GCC Compiler
The GCC free compiler is a very large software, compiling source in several
languages for many targets on various systems. It can be extended by plugins,
which may take advantage of its power to provide extra specific functionality
(warnings, optimizations, source refactoring or navigation) by processing
various GCC internal representations (Gimple, Tree, ...). Writing plugins in C
is a complex and time-consuming task, but customizing GCC by using an existing
scripting language inside is impractical. We describe MELT, a specific
Lisp-like DSL which fits well into existing GCC technology and offers
high-level features (functional, object or reflexive programming, pattern
matching). MELT is translated to C fitted for GCC internals and provides
various features to facilitate this. This work shows that even huge, legacy,
software can be a posteriori extended by specifically tailored and translated
high-level DSLs.Comment: In Proceedings DSL 2011, arXiv:1109.032
E-QED: Electrical Bug Localization During Post-Silicon Validation Enabled by Quick Error Detection and Formal Methods
During post-silicon validation, manufactured integrated circuits are
extensively tested in actual system environments to detect design bugs. Bug
localization involves identification of a bug trace (a sequence of inputs that
activates and detects the bug) and a hardware design block where the bug is
located. Existing bug localization practices during post-silicon validation are
mostly manual and ad hoc, and, hence, extremely expensive and time consuming.
This is particularly true for subtle electrical bugs caused by unexpected
interactions between a design and its electrical state. We present E-QED, a new
approach that automatically localizes electrical bugs during post-silicon
validation. Our results on the OpenSPARC T2, an open-source
500-million-transistor multicore chip design, demonstrate the effectiveness and
practicality of E-QED: starting with a failed post-silicon test, in a few hours
(9 hours on average) we can automatically narrow the location of the bug to
(the fan-in logic cone of) a handful of candidate flip-flops (18 flip-flops on
average for a design with ~ 1 Million flip-flops) and also obtain the
corresponding bug trace. The area impact of E-QED is ~2.5%. In contrast,
deter-mining this same information might take weeks (or even months) of mostly
manual work using traditional approaches
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