Instruction Retargeting Based on the State Pair Notation

This paper presents a new approach to retarget existing software at the assembly level from one instruction set to another instruction set. The approach is based on abstracting the instruction set as the symbolic transitions of the machine states, especially focuses on translating Intel x86 instruction set into another efficient RISC-based core instruction set. The retargeting process is modeled as a planning process that finds a plan which brings the processor from the same initial states to the same final states as the original software. The assembly-to-assembly retargeting capability helps renovating the existing software investment and shortening the period of time-to-market when upgrading to processor with newer instruction sets. 1