A hybrid just-in-time compiler for android

Abstract

The Dalvik virtual machine is the main application platform running on Google's Android operating system for mobile devices and tablets. It is a Java Virtual Machine running a basic trace-based JIT compiler, unlike web browser JavaScript engines that usually run a combination of both method and trace-based JIT types. We developed a methodbased JIT compiler based on the Low Level Virtual Machine framework that delivers performance improvement comparable to that of an Ahead-Of-Time compiler. We compared our method-based JIT against Dalvik's own trace-based JIT using common benchmarks available in the Android Market. Our results show that our method-based JIT is better than a basic trace-based JIT, and that, by sharing profiling and compilation information among each other, a smart combination of both JIT techniques can achieve a great performance gain.