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Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (한국전자통신연구원)
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Static Dalvik Bytecode Optimization for Android Applications

  • Kim, Jeehong (College of Information and Communication Engineering, Sungkyunkwan University) ;
  • Kim, Inhyeok (College of Information and Communication Engineering, Sungkyunkwan University) ;
  • Min, Changwoo (College of Information and Communication Engineering, Sungkyunkwan University) ;
  • Jun, Hyung Kook (SW & Contents Research Laboratory, ETRI) ;
  • Lee, Soo Hyung (SW & Contents Research Laboratory, ETRI) ;
  • Kim, Won-Tae (SW & Contents Research Laboratory, ETRI) ;
  • Eom, Young Ik (College of Information and Communication Engineering, Sungkyunkwan University)
  • Received : 2014.01.29
  • Accepted : 2015.07.30
  • Published : 2015.10.01
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Abstract

Since just-in-time (JIT) has considerable overhead to detect hot spots and compile them at runtime, using sophisticated optimization techniques for embedded devices means that any resulting performance improvements will be limited. In this paper, we introduce a novel static Dalvik bytecode optimization framework, as a complementary compilation of the Dalvik virtual machine, to improve the performance of Android applications. Our system generates optimized Dalvik bytecodes by using Low Level Virtual Machine (LLVM). A major obstacle in using LLVM for optimizing Dalvik bytecodes is determining how to handle the high-level language features of the Dalvik bytecode in LLVM IR and how to optimize LLVM IR conforming to the language information of the Dalvik bytecode. To this end, we annotate the high-level language features of Dalvik bytecode to LLVM IR and successfully optimize Dalvik bytecodes through instruction selection processes. Our experimental results show that our system with JIT improves the performance of Android applications by up to 6.08 times, and surpasses JIT by up to 4.34 times.

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