Pipelined Virtual Machine

This project is a pipelined implementation of the LC-3 architecture. The LC-3 architecture is 16-bit, 16-bit addressable, and contains an address space of 2^16. It can load and run LC-3 Assembly programs.

The processor is divided into 5 stages: IF, ID, EX, MEM, WB. Each executes as a single thread to simulate parallelism. The virtual pipeline supports pipeline stalls, read-after-write hazard handling, and control hazard handling. Features that will be implemented in the future are an access violation handler, branch prediction, data forwarding, and interrupt handlers.

Tech Stack

• C
• LC-3 Assembly

Quick Start

Requirements:

• Docker
• Georgia Tech CS 2110's LC-3 Tools

Run the Docker container:

./docker.sh # run `chmod +x ./docker.sh` if permission denied

To start the VM, you must first assemble an LC-3 Assembly file using Georgia Tech CS 2110's LC-3 tools. Then, run:

make ARGS="-l <assembled lc-3 obj file path>"

To test the VM, run:

make test

To debug the VM using gdb, run:

make debug 
make debug-tests # to run while testing

To run Valgrind on the VM, run:

make valgrind

To clean the project, run:

make clean 

To format the project, run:

make format