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DF00100 Advanced Compiler Construction

(PhD course, 9hp, spring 2021)

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 (weeks 6 and 7).
In spring 2021, due to the pandemic restrictions, the course will be given entirely on distance via zoom.
The preliminary schedule is given below. Slides may be updated shortly before/after each lecture.

Date Time Location Topic (with links to slides (PS/PDF) where available) Lecturer
Week 6 - Focus on Program Analysis and High-Level Optimizations
Tuesday 09/2/2021 09:15-12:00 Zoom Introduction. (PDF)
Multi-level intermediate representations. Principles of code generation, stack organisation and call sequences, local common subexpression elimination, DAGs, lowering. (PDF) 		Christoph Kessler
09/2/2021 13:15-14:00 Zoom Lab introduction:
LLVM Compiler Framework.
Lab part 1, Lab part 2 		August Ernstsson
09/2/2021 14:15-16:00 Zoom Control flow analysis (PDF) Christoph Kessler
Wednesday 10/2/2021 09:15-12:00 Zoom Data flow analysis (PDF) Christoph Kessler
10/2/2021 15:15-17:00 Zoom Abstract interpretation. (PDF) Welf Löwe
Thursday 11/2/2021 09:15-12:00 Zoom Interprocedural Analysis. Points-to Analysis. (PDF) Welf Löwe
11/2/2021 13:15-14:00 Zoom Lesson 1: Control and data flow analysis Christoph Kessler
11/2/2021 15:00-16:00 (time slot reserved for SaS staff meeting) -
Friday 12/2/2021 09:15-12:00 Zoom Dependence analysis, loop transformations, loop parallelization (PDF) Christoph Kessler
12/2/2021 13:15-14:00 Zoom Reserve time slot for continuation of Lesson 1 Christoph Kessler
12/2/2021 15:15-17:00 Zoom Guest lecture: The Open-source Modelica Compiler (PDF) Martin Sjölund
Week 7 - Focus on SSA, Low-level Optimizations and Code Generation
Monday 15/2/2021 13:15-16:00 Zoom

Instruction selection (PDF)

Register allocation (PDF)

 Christoph Kessler
Tuesday 16/2/2021 09:15-12:00 Zoom Instruction scheduling (PDF).
Side note: Space-optimal scheduling for trees (PDF, for self-study)
Software pipelining (PDF)		 Christoph Kessler
16/2/2021 13:15-14:00 Zoom Lesson 2: Dependence analysis and loop transformations August Ernstsson
16/2/2021 14:15-16:00 Zoom Code generation for embedded processors, DSP processors, clustered VLIW architectures. (PDF, only partly covered).
Integrated code generation (PDF) 		Christoph Kessler
Wednesday 17/2/2021 09:15-11:00 Zoom Selected advanced topics:
Compilation for actors and stream computing: task fusion, scheduling, mapping, DVFS (MP4 recorded lecture 25min, watch off-line)
Data transfer fusion optimization (PDF);
Auto-tuning (PDF)

 Christoph Kessler
17/2/2021 11:15-12:00 Zoom Lesson 3: Instruction scheduling, software pipelining August Ernstsson
Wednesday 17/2/2021 13:15-16:00 Zoom SSA, construction and destruction, Memory SSA. SSA-based optimizations. (PDF) Welf Löwe
Thursday 18/2/2021 09:15-12:00 Zoom More SSA based optimizations; Chi functions in lazy memory SSA based analysis (PDF) Welf Löwe
18/2/2021 12:15-13:00 Zoom Assignment of papers for student presentations. Christoph Kessler
Week 12:
24/3/2021 09:00-10:00 Zoom Guest lecture;
24/3/2021 10:00-17:00 Zoom Student presentations
Week 13:
31/3/2021 09:00-13:00 Zoom Written/oral exam (TEN1) Christoph Kessler

Organization
Lectures, lessons, compiler framework programming labs, and student presentations of compiler research papers.

Lectures are, where possible, given in 2 intensive weeks, usually 09:15-12:00 and 13:15-16:00 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: prel. wednesday 31/3, 09-13, on distance. Room: Zoom.

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):

  • Alfred Aho, Monica Lam, Ravi Sethi, Jeffrey Ullman: Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools. Second edition, Addison-Wesley, 2006.
    The course book of the undergraduate compiler course. If you already have it, use it.
  • Steven Muchnick: Advanced Compiler Design and Implementation. Morgan Kaufmann, 1997. (Quite expensive, but recommended reading. The LiU TekNat library has 2 copies.)
    Errata for early printings
  • alternatively: Keith Cooper, Linda Torczon: Engineering a Compiler. Morgan Kaufmann, 2003.
  • Y.N. Srikant, P. Shankar (ed.): The compiler design handbook: optimizations and machine code generation, CRC Press, 2003.
    (Available in the LiU TekNat library, also the first edition..
    More complete and more up to date than Muchnick's book, but a collection of independent chapters rather than a monograph, and expensive.)
    In particular, chapters 5 (Optimizations for memory hierarchy), 7 (Energy-aware compiler optimizations), 11 (SSA form), 16 (ADLs for retargetable compiling), 17 (Instruction selection), 18 (DSP VLIW compiler), 19 (Instruction scheduling), 20 (Software pipelining). The first edition contains a chapter on dataflow analysis.
Papers: Further background reading:
  • Randy Allen, Ken Kennedy: Optimizing compilers for modern architectures. Morgan Kaufmann, 2002. (Covers e.g. dependence analysis, loop optimizations, cache optimizations, parallelization, interprocedural analysis and optimization.)
  • Michael Scott: Programming Language Pragmatics. Morgan Kaufmann, 2000. (Excellent summary of concepts in programming languages and their implementation in compilers. Chapter 13 gives a summary of code optimization.)
  • Joseph A. Fisher, Paolo Faraboschi, Cliff Young: Embedded Computing - A VLIW Approach to Architecture, Compilers, and Tools. Morgan Kaufmann, 2005.
    Available in the LiU TekNat library.
  • Peter Marwedel, Gert Goossens (Eds.): Code Generation for Embedded Processors. Kluwer International Series in Engineering and Computer Science, 1995.
  • Rainer Leupers: Retargetable Code Generation for Digital Signal Processors. Kluwer, 1997. (Available in Kvartersbibliotek B.)
  • Rainer Leupers: Code Optimization Techniques for Embedded Processors. Kluwer, 2000. (Available in Kvartersbibliotek B.)
  • Hennessy, Patterson: Computer Architecture, a Quantitative Approach, Third Edition. Morgan Kaufmann, 2003. (Chapter 4 gives an overview of compiler optimizations for ILP.)
For repetition of some foundations (course prerequisites) in graph-theory: Further resources: Teachers
Christoph Kessler (course leader)
Welf Löwe (guest lecturer)
Martin Sjölund (guest lecturer)
August Ernstsson (course assistant)

Examiner
Christoph Kessler
Welf Löwe (guest examiner)

Examination

  • TEN1: Written or oral exam, 4.5hp (date see schedule).
    No aids are allowed.
    Admission to the exam requires presence in at least 50% of all lectures and lessons.
    Passing the exam is mandatory for getting any credit points on the course.
  • LAB2: Compiler framework lab with written report 3hp (course assistant: August Ernstsson) Deadline: 6 April 2021
  • PRE1: Paper presentation, opposition and written summary 1.5hp (Christoph) Deadline (summary): 6 April 2021
    For admission to the presentation it is required that at least 50% of the lectures and lessons have been attended.

Credit
Up to 9hp for the entire course, provided that the written exam is passed.
Admission to the exam and presentation requires 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.

This page is maintained by Christoph Kessler

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Last updated: 2022-07-18