Bidwidth analysis with application to silicon compilation

This paper introduces Bitwise, a compiler that minimizes the bitwidth the number of bits used to represent each operand for both integers and pointers in a program. By propagating 70 static information both forward and backward in the program dataflow graph, Bitwise frees the programmer from declaring bitwidth invariants in cases where the compiler can determine bitwidths automatically. Because loop instructions comprise the bulk of dynamically executed instructions, Bitwise incorporates sophisticated loop analysis techniques for identifying bitwidths. We find a rich opportunity for bitwidth reduction in modern multimedia and streaming application workloads. For new architectures that support sub-word data-types, we expect that our bitwidth reductions will save power and increase processor performance.