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Archive / INF Seminars / INF_2025_07_22_AndreasKrall

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	OpenVADL: An Open Source Implementation of the Vienna Architecture Description Language

Host: Prof. Walter Binder

Tuesday

22.07

USI Campus EST, Room D0.02

11:30 - 13:00


	Andreas Krall TU Wien

Abstract: OpenVADL is an open source implementation of the Vienna Architecture Description Language (VADL). VADL is a processor description language (PDL) that enables the concise formal specification of processor architectures. OpenVADL automatically generates an assembler and linker, an LLVM based compiler, a QEMU based instruction set simulator and a synthesizable specification in the hardware description language Chisel from a single VADL processor specification. VADL strictly separates the instruction set architecture (ISA) specification from the microarchitecture (MiA) specification. VADL's MiA specification operates at a higher level of abstraction compared to existing PDLs. This presentation introduces OpenVADL, describes the generator techniques in detail, and shows the performance of the generators and generated artifacts in an empirical evaluation. The evaluation demonstrates the capabilities of OpenVADL and its efficiency. OpenVADL is available at https://openvadl.org and https://github.com/openvadl.

Biography: Andreas Krall is a Professor of Computer Science at TU Wien. His research focus is on compilers, virtual machines, logic programming, programming languages, and computer architectures. He is well known for his work on dynamic compilation within the CACAO Java Virtual Machine and the Vienna Abstract Machine, an abstract machine for logic programming. His current research activities are in the field of compiler and processor specification and verification (Vienna Architecture Description Language). For seven years he led the Christian Doppler research laboratory "Compilation Techniques for Embedded Processors" which was jointly funded by industry and government.
He was visiting professor at the University of Geneva, Switzerland, at TU Chemnitz, Germany, and at the University of Sydney, Australia. For his contributions in the field of logic programming he received the Heinz Zemanek award of the Austrian Computer Society. He received his PhD from TU