Intel and Chinese Academy of Sciences Collaborate On Advanced Compiler Research.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

BEIJING, China--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 26, 2001

INTEL DEVELOPER FORUM. Intel Corporation today announced that it is teaming up with the Institute of Computing Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing on advanced software compiler research. The focus of the two-year research agreement will be to develop the technologies that will help researchers build the next generation of processors and compilers.

Compilers and processors need to be developed in conjunction with each other, because advanced processors can achieve better performance through compilers designed to take advantage of their architecture. The research is targeted at improving general purpose performance and efficiency of the Intel(R) Itanium(TM) processor family. This, in turn, will improve performance of e-Business and other applications on Intel-based computers.

"We are very pleased to be working with the Chinese Academy of Sciences on this important compiler research," said Patrick P. Gelsinger, vice president and chief technology officer, Intel Architecture Group. "Its unique experience and knowledge will enable us to accelerate our research program and gain early insight into novel microprocessor architectures."

Mr. Jiang Mianheng, vice president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences said, "It is a pleasure to be working with technology leaders like Intel on this significant and leading-edge Itanium(TM) compiler research project that will help enhance the development of the world processor/compiler sector."

Through this collaboration, researchers will develop robust, modular compiler components that enable experimentation. In this compiler, "modules" will be used to perform specific optimization tasks that allow researchers to quickly test different techniques against a common base. Optimization techniques tested in this way will include loop nesting, inter-procedural analysis, scalar optimization, global instruction scheduling, profiling, software pipeline, register allocation, predication and speculation. In addition, a number of simulator tools will be developed to enable validation and comparison of these modules.

Compilers take software written in high-level source code programming languages, like C and C++, and turn them into machine code that can be understood by processors. Modern processors like the Itanium processor have multiple instruction units and can perform multiple tasks in parallel. Modern compilers must be able to identify parallelism in the source code and assign tasks to keep all the instruction units busy. As microprocessor architecture advances, it is important to move compiler techniques along in parallel.

Today Intel offers high quality C++ and Fortran compiler products that fully support the performance features in all its newest microprocessors, including the Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 processor and Itanium processors.

Today's microprocessors and compilers use advanced microarchitectural features and optimization techniques, like instruction level parallelism, to enhance performance. As researchers look to the next generation of processors, they need tools to study those processors' innovative microarchitectures.

The Institute of Computing Technology team is lead by Professor Zhaoqing Zhang, who has been a leading researcher in high-performance compilers for more than 10 years working on both academic and industrial projects. The team from Intel Labs is lead by Dr. Jesse Fang, who has also worked in research and development of high performance compilers for more than 10 years and has been involved in building optimizing compilers for multiple microprocessor generations.

The researchers and scientists of Intel's Microprocessor Research Lab (MRL), part of Intel Labs, develop advanced microprocessor technology. In its international research facilities, MRL researchers have various focus areas, including microprocessors (circuits, architecture and compilers), platform architecture (buses, caches, memory and interconnect) and core human interfaces (speech, natural language processing, video, computer vision and graphics). For more information on Intel Labs, please visit www.intel.com/labs.

About the Institute for Computing Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences

The Institute for Computing Technology (ICT) under the Chinese Academy of Sciences is the first academic institution of computing technology in China. It is the birthplace of China's first computer, and a research and development base for China's current high-performance computers. The key research fields include: high-performance computing and grid computing environment, network and digital technology, knowledge processing and intelligent Internet software, SoC core technology, operating system and information security and Bioinformatics.

About Intel

Intel, the world's largest chip maker, is also a leading manufacturer of computer, networking and communications products. Additional information about Intel is available at www.intel.com/pressroom. Information about academic sponsorship is available at www.intel.com/research/university/index.htm.