Note: Whether the course will be given in 2025 or not depends in particular on the number of course registrations (from LiU PhD students). We expect a decision by the IDA graduate education board by early 2025.
Goals
Give Ph.D. students or practitioners knowledge about advanced compiler
technology, including
program analysis,
intermediate representations,
compiler optimizations,
code generation,
compiler frameworks,
run-time systems,
and compilation techniques for parallel and embedded systems.
Prerequisites
Basic course in compiler construction, corresponding to the
undergraduate courses Compilers and Interpreters or Compiler Construction.
Basic course in data structures and algorithms.
Basic knowledge in processor architecture.
For the labs: Programming in C++/Linux.
Contents and schedule
Lectures, lessons, lab introduction:
2 intensive weeks (mostly weeks 37 and 38/2025) in Linköping.
The course will be given on-site, but some moments
(lectures, lessons) may also be transmitted on zoom for external participants.
The student presentations and written exam will be on-site in Linköping.
Schedule frame for 2025:
- Lectures Monday-Friday in weeks 37 and 38 (9-18 September 2025), see below for details.
- Student presentations: TBA early october 2025, 09:00-17:00
- Written exam: TBA mid October, 4 hours.
The preliminary schedule is given below. Slides are currently still as of 2023 and may be updated shortly before/after each lecture.
Date | Time | Location | Topic (with links to slides (PS/PDF) where available) | Lecturer |
Week 37 - Focus on Program Analysis and High-Level Optimizations | ||||
Tuesday 09/09/2025 | 13:15-15:00 | Knuth / Zoom | Opening remarks (PDF, updated for 2023). Introduction: Multi-level intermediate representations. Principles of code generation, stack organisation and call sequences, local common subexpression elimination, DAGs, lowering. Short introduction to SSA form. Survey of some compiler frameworks. (PDF, updated for 2023) |
Christoph Kessler |
09/9/2025 | 16:00-17:00 | Knuth / Zoom | Control flow analysis (PDF, changed to 1x1 format) | Christoph Kessler |
10/9/2025 | 09:15-10:00 | Zoom |
Lab introduction: LLVM Compiler Framework. Lab part 1, Lab part 2 |
TBA |
Wednesday 10/9/2025 | 10:15-12:00 | Knuth / Zoom | Control flow analysis (cont.) / Data flow analysis (PDF) |
Christoph Kessler |
Wednesday 10/9/2025 | 13:15-17:00 | Knuth / Zoom | Dependence analysis, loop transformations, loop parallelization (PDF, upd.) | Christoph Kessler |
Thursday 11/9/2025 | 11:00-12:00 | Knuth / Zoom | Lesson 1: Program representation, control and data flow analysis | Christoph Kessler |
11/9/2025 | 13:15-17:00 | Knuth / Zoom | Abstract interpretation. (PDF) | Welf Löwe |
Friday 12/9/2025 | 09:15-12:00 | Knuth / Zoom | Interprocedural Analysis. Points-to Analysis. (PDF) | Welf Löwe |
Week 38 - Focus on SSA, Low-level Optimizations and Code Generation | ||||
Monday 15/9/2025 | 09:15-10:15 | John von Neumann | SaS seminar
(not part of the course, but possibly of interest for some attendants): |
Daniel Varro |
Monday 15/9/2023 | 13:15-17:00 | Knuth / Zoom | Instruction selection (PDF) Register allocation (PDF) |
Christoph Kessler |
Tuesday 16/9/2025 | 09:15-12:00 | Knuth / Zoom | Instruction scheduling (PDF). Side note: Space-optimal scheduling for trees (PDF, for self-study) |
Christoph Kessler |
16/9/2025 | 13:15-15:00 | Knuth / Zoom | Lesson 2: Dependence analysis and loop transformations | Christoph Kessler |
16/9/2025 | 15:15-17:00 | Knuth / Zoom | Software pipelining (PDF) | Christoph Kessler |
Wednesday 17/9/2025 | 09:15-11:00 | Knuth / Zoom | Software pipelining (cont.) Auto-tuning (PDF) Code generation for embedded processors, DSP processors, clustered VLIW architectures. (PDF, only partly covered). Not lectured in 2023, for reference only: Integrated code generation (PDF) Compilation for actors and stream computing: task fusion, scheduling, mapping, DVFS (MP4 recorded lecture 25min, watch off-line) Data transfer fusion optimization (PDF); |
Christoph Kessler |
17/9/2025 | 11:15-12:00 | Knuth / Zoom | Lesson 3: Instruction scheduling, software pipelining | Christoph Kessler |
17/9/2025 | 13:15-15:00 | Knuth / Zoom | Guest lecture: EMCA C Compiler, an LLVM based custom compiler at Ericsson | Mattias Eriksson |
17/9/2025 | 15:15-17:00 | Knuth / Zoom | Guest lecture: SkePU precompiler: Experiences with using the LLVM-clang compiler framework for source-to-source translation (PDF) | August Ernstsson |
Thursday 18/9/2025 | 09:15-11:00 | Knuth / Zoom | Guest lecture: The Open-source Modelica Compiler (PDF) | Martin Sjölund |
18/9/2025 | 11:15-12:00 | Knuth / Zoom | Assignment of papers for student presentations. | Christoph Kessler |
18/9/2025 | 13:15-17:00 | von Neumann / Zoom | SSA, construction and destruction, Memory SSA. SSA-based optimizations. (PDF, upd.) | Welf Löwe |
Friday 19/9/2025 | 09:15-12:00 | Knuth / Zoom | More SSA based optimizations; Chi functions in lazy memory SSA based analysis (PDF) | Welf Löwe |
Week TBA: | ||||
TBA | 09:00-17:00 | Donald Knuth | Student presentations | |
Week TBA: | ||||
TBA | 09:00-13:00 | John von Neumann | Written exam (TEN1) | Christoph Kessler |
Organization
Lectures, lessons, compiler framework programming labs, and student presentations of compiler research papers.
Lectures are, where possible, given in block format in 2 intensive weeks, usually 09:15-12:00 and 13:15-17:00 every day.
Lessons
are problem solving sessions, discussing
exercises
to complement the lectures.
The exercise sets are available here.
Lab series (3hp) using the LLVM compiler system.
Lab introduction (2021)
Lab instructions, part 1 (2021)
Lab instructions, part 2 (2021).
The lab assistant,
August Ernstsson,
will supervise labs and correct lab reports.
The presentation part of the course consists of
student presentations
of about 30 minutes each (25 minutes presentation plus 5 minutes questions)
on a recent paper in compiler technology,
with a written summary of 1-2 pages.
It also includes opposition of one other presentation.
See
this link
for detailed instructions and the list of selected/assigned student papers.
For admission to the presentation it is required
that at least 50% of the lectures and lessons have been attended.
Written/oral exam: Thursday 27/4/2023, 09:00-13:00, room: von Neumann.
No aids are allowed, except for a dictionary from English
to your native language.
For admission to the exam it is required that at least 50% of the lectures
and lessons have been attended.
Old exams:
Part 1 (PDF),
Part 2 (PDF),
Solution proposal part 2 (PDF)
Literature
You should be able to follow the course mainly based on the
slide material only.
The following books and papers are recommended as additional reading
wherever necessary:
Books:
No textbook covers the entire course contents completely. But parts of either of the following books and articles can be useful as accompanying text for a major part of the course (these are also available in the local library):
Examiner
Christoph Kessler
Welf Löwe (guest examiner)
Examination
Credit
Up to 6hp for the entire course, provided that the written exam is passed.
Admission to the examination moments (exam and presentation) requires formal registration on the course and presence in at least 50% of all lectures and lessons.
Note: Those who pass the course but are not IDA graduate students receive a paper certificate about their result. For potential acceptance of the certificate towards other graduate education programs please contact your program coordinator before joining the course.
Comments
This has been a CUGS Advanced Graduate Course 2002-2014.
The course is usually offered every other year.
It is not open to undergraduate students.