San Jose, CA; Embedded Processor Forum — Transitive Technologies Ltd. today unveiled a new “Optimizing Dynamic Binary Translation” technology which is claimed to efficiently run code compiled for one processor and operating system on a differing processor and operating system. Transitive's new instruction set translation technology is implemented in a product called “Dynamite”, which the company says… can, for example, “take ARM compatible instructions and execute them on non-ARM CPUs with complete transparency to both the system and the user.”

Transitive says that in addition to translating instruction set binaries, its technology “dynamically accelerates object code without recompilation,” thereby minimizing the usual performance degradation associated with instruction set emulation.

At the Embedded Processor Forum, Transitive demonstrated a pair of UNIX applications, XMaze and MPEG Play, running on a pair of identical MIPS CPU based Cobalt Cubes, each running Cobalt Linux. On one machine, the two applications were running native, having been compiled for the MIPS processor and Cobalt Linux. On the second machine, the applications were precompiled for X86 on a Red Hat Linux distribution, and were run via the Dynamite translator/accelerator. There was an obvious latency in startup of the X86 binaries on “cube 2,” but after about half a minute the system running X86 binaries appeared to catch up with the execution speed of the system running native binaries.

Transitive CTO Alasdair Rawsthorne says the Dynamite technology requires between 200KB and 500KB of added memory for the translator itself, depending on the specific CPU architecture translation being implemented, plus about 10% of the size of the application. That's because 90% of a program's execution time is spent in just 10% of the code, so Dynamite only dynamically generates static (reusable) code for about 10% of a given application, explains Alasdair.

According to Transitive, the market for embedded processors in applications such as communication network processors, set-top boxes, mobile computing devices, and mobile phones exceeded 400 million units in 2000 and is expected to rapidly accelerate globally. Transitive's strategy with its new technology is to solve compatibility problems among the heterogeneous “sea of embedded processors and operating systems.” Additionally, the company sees its technology as enabling “new best of breed processor architectures, combining dynamic binary translation and optimization in a software layer with unconstrained-ISA (instruction set architecture) hardware designs.”

Transitive's Dynamite technology was developed over the past five years at the University of Manchester, England, and is the subject of six patent applications. The company claims to be “the exclusive worldwide licensee of all Dynamite technology, with the perpetual right to develop, sub-license, and sell the technology in any form.” Transitive's model for licensing CPU-specific implementations of Dynamite involves an up-front licensing fee, followed by per-unit royalties.

 
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