The CoGenT project aims to make it much easier to sketch new architectural ideas at the instruction set architecture and micro-architecture ("block diagram") levels. We have designed languages for expressing instruction set semantics and encoding (CISL, the CoGenT Instruction Set Language), and for describing micro-architecture components, connections, and timing (CASL, the CoGenT Architecture Specification Language). CoGenT is now completing the language processors and run-time environments so that we can generate, from CISL and CASL machine descriptions, functional and timing simulators, and competent (but not automatically innovative) compilers. Among other things we are solving the problem of generating provably correct code generators and register allocators automatically, for the compiler side, and generating similarly correct simulators automatically on the simulator side. (Of course correctness is relative to correctness of the CISL and CASL descriptions.) CoGenT also aims to provide a capable simulator environment and tools for setting up and running simulation experiments. Our hope is to revolutionize architecture design exploration and simulation, with research, industrial, and teaching impact. We are focusing on getting the maximum functionality implemented under this award.
