Loop sensitive context switching between partitions in a co-design virtual machine

Context switching between partitions in a hardware/software co-design virtual machine must be performed efficiently to minimize its impact on overall execution time. Loop sensitive context switching is sensitive to the non-sequential flow of execution due to branch instructions in an application. This approach differs from earlier work as the algorithm only identifies branch instructions that cause loops to be fanned. The algorithm is expected to identify blocks of instructions for hardware execution that is executed multiple times with minimum, context switching. The algorithm is analyzed by measuring both percentage of execution in hardware and the number of context switches between partitions. This paper presents the performance of this algorithm versus previous solutions for identification of suitable code blocks for hardware execution. The paper further discusses high-level programming heuristics that can be used to increase an application's suitability for execution in a co-design Java virtual machine.