Comprehensive Review of Research on Dynamic Binary Translation Techniques

Abstract

Solving compatibility issues in programs is crucial for building a domestic software ecosystem. With the diversification of computer architectures, ensuring software runs smoothly across different platforms and hardware environments has become an urgent task in software development. Against this backdrop, dynamic binary translation (DBT) technology emerges as significant. As a core technology enabling interoperability between different instruction set architectures (ISA), DBT allows for cross-platform compatibility and significantly expands the applicability and flexibility of software through runtime instruction conversion. However, the introduction of DBT also places higher demands on system performance in terms of efficiency and resource utilization. This paper reviews DBT technology, including its basic principles, research progress, key technologies, and optimization methods. It starts with an introduction to the basic principles and history of DBT. Then, it elaborates on the research progress, especially significant achievements in improving translation accuracy and execution efficiency. Furthermore, it introduces six categories of DBT optimization techniques: runtime optimization, control flow optimization, instruction-level optimization, security and isolation optimization, resource management optimization, and hardware-software co-optimization. This paper also summarizes these key technologies, their optimization techniques, and the challenges they face. Finally, from multiple perspectives such as technological trends, application area expansion, and performance improvement strategies, the future research direction and development prospects of DBT technology are discussed.

Keywords

• dynamic binary translation; instruction set architecture; instruction translation; software compatibility