The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), as part of its Architecture Aware Compiler Environment Program, has awarded Rice University $16 million to develop a new set of tools that can improve the performance of virtually any application running on any microprocessor.
The PACE project — short for “platform-aware compilation environment” — centers on ubiquitous computer programs called compilers. All microprocessors — not just those in PCs but also the ones powering cell phones, game systems, cars and even electronic toys — have their own compilers to translate human-written computer applications into the binary 1s and 0s that a processor can execute.
