Deterministic Fully-Static Whole-Binary Translation without Heuristics

TL;DR

Elevator is a deterministic, static binary translator that converts x86-64 executables to AArch64 without heuristics, enabling reliable testing and validation with complete control over the translated code.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach that considers all byte interpretations simultaneously, producing complete, self-contained translations without runtime fallback or heuristics.

Findings

Successfully translated entire SPECint 2006 binaries.

Achieves performance comparable or better than QEMU's JIT.

Produces deterministic, self-contained binaries with no runtime component.

Abstract

We present Elevator, the first binary translator that statically translates entire x86-64 executables to AArch64 without debug information, source code, or assumptions about code layout. Unlike existing systems, which rely on heuristics or runtime fallbacks to handle code-versus-data decoding errors, Elevator considers all possible interpretations of every byte and produces a separate translation for each feasible one ahead of time. Any byte may be interpreted as data, an opcode, or an opcode argument; we generate separate control flow paths for all interpretations, pruning only those leading to abnormal termination. Translations are built by composing code "tiles" automatically derived from a high-level description of the source ISA, yielding a nimble translation framework. The approach is deterministic and produces complete, self-contained binaries with no runtime component in the trusted code base. The principal cost is substantial code size expansion. The key benefit is that the output is the actual code that will run, enabling testing, validation, certification, and cryptographic signing prior to deployment, reducing risk compared to emulators or JIT compilers. We evaluate Elevator on a diverse corpus of real-world binaries, including the entire SPECint 2006 suite, demonstrating that static full-program binary translation can be both reliable and practical. Elevator achieves performance on par with or better than QEMU's user-mode JIT emulation.