processor

Miden processor

This crate contains an implementation of Miden VM processor. The purpose of the processor is to execute a program and to generate a program execution trace. This trace is then used by Miden VM to generate a proof of correct execution of the program.

Usage

The processor exposes two functions which can be used to execute programs: execute() and execute_iter(). Both of these functions take the same arguments:

• program: &Program - a reference to a Miden program to be executed.
• stack_inputs: StackInputs - a set of public inputs with which to execute the program.
• advice_provider: AdviceProvider - an instance of an advice provider that yields secret, non-deterministic inputs to the prover.

The execute() function returns a Result<ExecutionTrace, ExecutionError> which will contain the execution trace of the program if the execution was successful, or an error, if the execution failed. Internally, the VM then passes this execution trace to the prover to generate a proof of a correct execution of the program.

The execute_iter() function returns a VmStateIterator which can be used to iterate over the cycles of the executed program for debug purposes. In fact, when we execute a program using this function, a lot of the debug information is retained and we can get a precise picture of the VM's state at any cycle. Moreover, if the execution results in an error, the VmStateIterator can still be used to inspect VM states right up to the cycle at which the error occurred.

For example:

use miden_assembly::Assembler;
use miden_processor::{execute, execute_iter, MemAdviceProvider, StackInputs};

// instantiate the assembler
let assembler = Assembler::default();

// compile Miden assembly source code into a program
let program = assembler.compile("begin push.3 push.5 add end").unwrap();

// use an empty list as initial stack
let stack_inputs = StackInputs::default();

// instantiate an empty advice provider
let mut advice_provider = MemAdviceProvider::default();

// execute the program with no inputs
let trace = execute(&program, stack_inputs.clone(), &mut advice_provider).unwrap();

// now, execute the same program in debug mode and iterate over VM states
for vm_state in execute_iter(&program, stack_inputs, advice_provider) {
    match vm_state {
        Ok(vm_state) => println!("{:?}", vm_state),
        Err(_) => println!("something went terribly wrong!"),
    }
}

Processor components

The processor is organized into several components:

• The decoder, which is responsible for decoding instructions and managing control flow.
• The stack, which is responsible for executing instructions against the stack.
• The range-checker, which is responsible for checking whether values can fit into 16 bits.
• The chiplets module, which contains specialized chiplets responsible for handling complex computations (e.g., hashing) as well as random access memory.

These components are connected via two busses:

• The range-checker bus, which links stack and chiplets modules with the range-checker.
• The chiplet bus, which links stack and the decoder with the chiplets module.

A much more in-depth description of Miden VM design is available here.

Crate features

Miden processor can be compiled with the following features:

• std - enabled by default and relies on the Rust standard library.
• no_std does not rely on the Rust standard library and enables compilation to WebAssembly.

To compile with no_std, disable default features via --no-default-features flag.

License

This project is MIT licensed.