Overhead reduction techniques for software dynamic translation

Summary form only given. Software dynamic translation (SDT) is a technology that allows programs to be modified as they are running. The overhead of monitoring and modifying a running program's instructions is often substantial in SDT systems. As a result, SDT can be impractically slow, especially in SDT systems that do not or cannot employ dynamic optimization to offset overhead. This is unfortunate since SDT has obvious advantages in modern computing environments and interesting applications of SDT continue to emerge. We investigate several overhead reduction techniques, including indirect branch translation caching, fast returns, and static trace formation that can improve SDT performances significantly.