Most modern programming languages and techniques include object-oriented methods. However, mainstream computer architectures have not acknowledged the presence of objects. With the widespread use of object-oriented programming languages and techniques, it is becoming important for computer architects to acknowledge the existence of these methods and their impacts on execution (including high object allocation rates, the impact of garbage collection, dynamic binding of calls to methods, and dynamic assembly of programs at run time from components obtained from disparate sources).

Java is an exciting new object-oriented technology. Hardware for supporting objects and other features of Java such as multithreading, dynamic linking and loading is the focus of this workshop. The impact of Java's features on micro-architectural resources and issues in the design of Java-specific architectures are interesting topics that require immediate attention of the research community.

The purpose of this workshop is to draw together researchers and practitioners concerned with hardware support for objects and Java implementations for a stimulating exchange of views. To the organizers' best knowledge, this is the first event of its kind, and as such is an attempt to begin the task of building a community in this field. Topics of interest include (but are not limited to):

• Microarchitectural features for object-oriented systems, especially their quantitative evaluation
• Measurements of hardware-level behavior of object-oriented systems
• Design of Java Processors: resource, power and performance constraints
• Tuning Java compilers and applications to efficiently utilize hardware resources
• Memory hierarchy for supporting objects
• Instruction set designs and enhancements to support objects and Java execution.

Program

8:00-8.15 Welcome

8:15-9:45a.m. Session 1. Innovations in Memory System Design

Chair: Timothy Heil, University of Wisconsin, Madison

• A Case for Using Active Memory to Support Garbage Collection
  Sylvia Dieckmann and Urs Hoelzle
• Tolerating Latency by Prefetching Java Objects,
  Brendon Cahoon and Kathryn McKinley
• DMMX: Dynamic Memory Management Extension,
  J. Morris Chang, Witawas Srisa-an, and Chia-Tien Dan Lo

10:15-11:45a.m. Session 2. Architectural Issues in Dynamic Translation

Chair: Mario Wolczko, Sun Microsystems, Inc.

• How can hardware support Just-In-Time compilation?
  A. Murthy, N. Vijaykrishnan, A. Sivasubramaniam
• Exploiting Hardware Resources: Register Assignment across Method Boundaries
  Ian Rogers, Alasdair Rawsthorne, Jason Souloglou
• A Decoupled Translate Execute Architecture (DTEA) to Improve Performance of Java Execution,
  Ramesh Radhakrishnan and Lizy Jurian John

1:00-2:00p.m. Session 3. Object-Oriented Architectural Support

Chair: Lizy John, University of Texas, Austin

• Applying Predication to Reduce the Direct Cost of Virtual Function Calls in Object-Oriented Programs,
  Sandeep K. S. Gupta, Chris Sadler
• Hardware Support for Profiling Java Programs,
  Nathan M. Hanish and William E. Cohen

2:15-3:45p.m. Session 4. Microarchitectures for Java

Chair: Vijaykrishnan Narayanan, Pennsylvania State University

• VLSI Architecture Using Lightweight Threads (VAULT),
  Ian Watson, Greg Wright, Ahmed El-Mahdy
• A two step approach in the development of a Java Silicon Machine (JSM) for small embedded systems,
  Hagen Ploog, Ralf Kraudelt, Nicco Bannow, Tino Rachui, Frank Golatowski, Dirk Timmermann
• Quantitative Analysis for Java Microprocessor Architectural Requirements: Instruction Set Design,
  M. Watheq EL-Kharashi, Fayez ElGuibaly, Kin F. Li

4:00-5:30p.m. Panel Session: Java Virtual Machines: What can hardware offer to support them?

Panelists:
David Hardin, Ajile Systems, Inc.
Jim Smith, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Marc Tremblay, Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Moderator: Mario Wolczko, Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Organizers

Workshop Co-Chairs:  
Vijaykrishnan Narayanan, Penn State Univ.      vijay@cse.psu.edu
Mario Wolczko, Sun Microsystems, Inc.          mario.wolczko@sun.com

Program Committee
Timothy Heil, Univ. of Wisconsin       		    	 heilt@ece.wisc.edu
Lizy John, Univ. of Texas at Austin        		 ljohn@ece.utexas.edu
Vijaykrishnan Narayanan, Penn State Univ. 		 vijay@cse.psu.edu
Nagarajan Ranganathan, Univ. of Texas at El Paso         ranganat@ece.utep.edu 
Mario Wolczko, Sun Microsystems, Inc.            	 mario.wolczko@sun.com

Proceedings