High-level language computer architecture

A high-level language computer architecture (HLLCA) is a computer architecture designed to be targeted by a specific high-level programming language (HLL), rather than the architecture being dictated by hardware considerations. It is accordingly also termed language-directed computer design, coined in McKeeman (1967) and primarily used in the 1960s and 1970s. HLLCAs were popular in the 1960s and 1970s, but largely disappeared in the 1980s. This followed the dramatic failure of the Intel 432 (1981) and the emergence of optimizing compilers and reduced instruction set computer (RISC) architectures and RISC-like complex instruction set computer (CISC) architectures, and the later development of just-in-time compilation (JIT) for HLLs. A detailed survey and critique can be found in Ditzel & Patterson (1980).

HLLCAs date almost to the beginning of HLLs, in the Burroughs large systems (1961), which were designed for ALGOL 60 (1960), one of the first HLLs. The best known HLLCAs may be the Lisp machines of the 1970s and 1980s, for the language Lisp (1959). At present the most popular HLLCAs are Java processors, for the language Java (1995), and these are a qualified success, being used for certain applications. A recent architecture in this vein is the Heterogeneous System Architecture (2012), which HSA Intermediate Layer (HSAIL) provides instruction set support for HLL features such as exceptions and virtual functions; this uses JIT to ensure performance.