A region-based compilation infrastructure

In this paper we develop a new region-based compilation framework driven by the considerations of performance opportunities and compilation resources. In addition, we allow some optimization-directed attributes communicated from one optimization phase to another on a region basis to guide subsequent optimizations. This region-based framework has been implemented in the Open Research Compiler targeting Itanium^® Processor Family (IPF). Experimental results from the SPEC2000Int programs show that this infrastructure provides an effective control on forming regions to meet the requirements of different optimizations. For example, the compilation time of instruction scheduling is significantly reduced by this region formation infrastructure while preserving or improving the overall performance. At the highest optimization level, the performance of one program has a 15.6% improvement by employing this region-based infrastructure.