A functional specification language for instruction set architectures

Author

Cook, Todd A. ; Harcourt, Ed

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., Rutgers Univ., Piscataway, NJ, USA

fYear

1994

fDate

16-19 May 1994

Firstpage

11

Lastpage

19

Abstract

Application-specific programmable processing systems consist of not only a processor, but also the software that runs on it. In order to support development of such systems, a design environment must support both hardware and software development. Unfortunately, there are no specification languages for processors that are suitable for such dual use. Therefore, we have designed a functional-style language that is specifically intended for describing instruction sets; its functional nature allows it to describe the result that an instruction produces without having to specify the mechanism of operation. This property is key to allowing dual use of the specification, since it will not be biased towards either hardware or software development. We are constructing a design environment based on our language

Keywords

formal specification; functional programming; instruction sets; program processors; specification languages; application-specific programmable processing systems; design environment; functional specification language; functional-style language; hardware development; instruction set architectures; software development; Computer architecture; Computer science; Hardware design languages; Instruction sets; Programming profession; Registers; Software tools; Specification languages;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Computer Languages, 1994., Proceedings of the 1994 International Conference on

Conference_Location

Toulouse

Print_ISBN

0-8186-5640-X

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ICCL.1994.288397

Filename

288397