A HARDWARE EMULATION AND MICROPROGRAMMING ENVIRONMENT

Abstract

In this dissertation, I will propose an environment for computer architecture design and instruction. It consists of a new, simple but elegant hardware description language called HELEC and a compiler that automatically generates interactive simulator software that simulates the operation of machines specified in the HELEC language. Though there have been many hardware description languages proposed in the past, their accessibility is difficult and the concepts relatively hard to grasp. This dissertation presents the philosophy and motivation for a computer architecture environment based on the new HELEC language, and the design and construction of a HELEC compiler. This compiler checks the syntactical correctness of a HELEC specification and generates a complete simulator program for the specified machine. The development of a user interface to the HELEC compiler is described, and a case study is given to demonstrate the use of the HELEC compiler. Lastly, recommendations for possible extension of the HELEC environment are given.