The Missing Diagonal: High Level Languages for Low Level Systems (Invited Talk Abstract)

The computing community has produced many high level languages and tools for programming high level systems (e.g. Java for user interfaces) and it has produced many low level languages and tools for programming low level systems (C for operating systems, Verilog for hardware design) yet there are not many examples of high level systems that have been produced to help develop low level systems. Sometimes this is due to a suspicion that the layers of abstraction that high level systems use incur unacceptable performance overheads. However, this talk attempts to challenge that view, giving examples of high level systems that improve the designer productivity for developing low level systems which also improve the quality of verification for low level systems. The talk will draw examples from the presenter’s own experience, as well as the work of others. Specific examples will include Lava and Bluespec for the design of hardware, the Silver Oak project for the co-design of a high assurance silicon root of trust, a Haskell-based DSL for programming machine learning chips, and recent work on the specification and verification of parts of a new silicon chip produced at Groq which makes use of the same Haskell DSL.