Hardware Assistance

Hardly anyone writes programs in assembly language now. The measured performance of a computer depends on both the hardware and the compiler.

Hardware assistance can greatly improve performance for some expensive program operations:

• subroutine call

• array references

• matrix operations, graphics

Hardware designers increasingly rely on compilers to handle things that used to be done by hardware (e.g. delaying use of a result until it is ready), allowing CPU's to run faster.