With the rapid development of information technology, a variety of new processor architectures have emerged. The emergence of new architectures brings opportunities for the diversification of processors and meanwhile poses great challenges, which require the compatible operation of existing software to ensure a rich software ecosystem. However, it is difficult to compile large amounts of ecological software from source code compilation in a short time. As a technology that migrates executable code directly from the binary level, binary translation supports cross-platform software compatible operation, which not only expands the software ecosystem but also reduces the coupling between applications and hardware. In recent years, the research on binary translation has made great progress. To summarize the existing achievements and shortcomings, this study first introduces the classification of binary translation technology and typical binary translation systems, then analyzes and summarizes the instruction translation methods, key issues, and optimization techniques, and expounds on the core application fields of binary translation technology. Finally, a prospect is provided for the potential research directions of binary translation technology.