The StarJIT Compiler: A Dynamic Compiler for Managed Runtime Environments

Dynamic compilers (or Just-in-Time [JIT] compilers) are a key component of managed runtime environments. This paper describes the design and implementation of the StarJIT compiler, a dynamic compiler for Java Virtual Machines and Common Language Runtime platforms. The goal of the StarJIT compiler is to build an infrastructure to research the influence of managed runtime environments on Intel architectures. The StarJIT compiler can compile both Java and Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) bytecodes, and it uses a single intermediate representation and global optimization framework for both Java and CLI. The StarJIT compiler is designed to generate optimized code for the major Intel architectures and currently targets two Intel architectures: IA-32 and the Itanium Processor Family. In this paper, we describe the overall architecture (bytecode translators, global optimizer, and code generators) of the StarJIT compiler and the design of its intermediate representation, global optimizer, Itanium Processor Family code generator, and dynamic optimization framework. We present implementation details on the single static assignment (SSA)-based global ∗ Other brands and names are the property of their respective owners.  Itanium is a registered trademark of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries. optimizations [1], the Itanium Processor Family trace scheduler, and the profile-driven dynamic optimization framework.