Computer Architecture Research Directions Research Articles

FPGAs versus GPUs in Data centers

This article presents position statements and a question-and-answer session by panelists at the Fourth Workshop on Computer Architecture Research Directions. The subject of the debate was the use of field-programmable gate arrays versus GPUs in datacenters.

Hot Interconnects and Debates on Computer Architecture Research Directions

This column discusses the contents of the issue, which includes articles on high-performance interconnects, debate transcripts from the fourth Workshop on Computer Architecture Research Directions, and retrospectives from winners of the MICRO Test of Time Award.

Proprietary versus Open Instruction Sets

This article presents position statements and a question-and-answer session by panelists at the 4th Workshop on Computer Architecture Research Directions. The subject of the debate was proprietary versus free and open instruction set architectures.

Impact of Future Technologies on Architecture

This article presents position statements and a question-and-answer session by panelists at the 4th Workshop on Computer Architecture Research Directions. The subject of the debate was new technologies and their impact on future architectures.

The Future of Architectural Simulation

Simulation is an indispensable tool for evaluation and analysis throughout the development cycle of a computer system, and even after the computer system is built. How simulation should evolve as the complexity of computer systems continues to grow is an open question and the subject of this panel from the 2009 Workshop on Computer Architecture Research Directions.

Programming Multicores: Do Applications Programmers Need to Write Explicitly Parallel Programs?

In this panel discussion from the 2009 Workshop on Computer Architecture Research Directions, David August and Keshav Pingali debate whether explicitly parallel programming is a necessary evil for applications programmers, assess the current state of parallel programming models, and discuss possible routes toward finding the programming model for the multicore era.

Future Directions in Computer Architecture Research

A year ago, the 36th International Symposium on Computer Architecture featured the latest installment of the Computer Architecture Research Directions workshop. CARD is a series of minipanels, in which two experts take somewhat opposing viewpoints on important topics related to the future of computer architecture, under the direction of a moderator. As in previous years, attendees flocked to the CARD workshop to hear these debates. Two years ago, Micro featured a special issue on the 2007 CARD workshop. This issue features two articles derived from those minipanels, followed by two excellent general-interest articles.

Where Does Security Stand? New Vulnerabilities vs. Trusted Computing

How can we ensure that platform hardware, firmware, and software work in concert to withstand rapidly evolving security threats? Architectural innovations bring performance gains but can also create new security vulnerabilities. In this panel discussion, from the 2007 workshop on Computer Architecture Research directions, we assess the current state of security and discuss possible routes toward trusted computing.

Single-Threaded vs. Multithreaded: Where Should We Focus?

Today, with the increasing popularity of multicore processors, one approach to optimizing the processor's performance is to reduce the execution times of individual applications running on each core by designing and implementing more powerful cores. Another approach, which is the polar opposite of the first, optimizes the processor's performance by running a larger number of applications on a correspondingly larger number of cores, albeit simpler ones. The difference between these two approaches is that the former focuses on reducing the latency of individual applications or threads (it optimizes the processor's single-threaded performance), whereas the latter focuses on reducing the latency of the applications' threads taken as a group (it optimizes the processor's multithreaded performance). The panel, from the 2007 Workshop on Computer Architecture Research Directions, discusses the relevant issues.

Productive and Healthy Debate

A productive, healthy debate is informative and insightful, and collectively moves the debaters and the audience closer to a potential solution or agreement by examining the issues from multiple viewpoints and critiquing those arguments. Micro editor in chief David Albonesi introduces four debates on computer architecture from the Computer Architecture Research Directions (CARD) workshop that was held as part of the 13th Annual IEEE/ACM International Symposium on High-Performance Computer Architecture in February 2007.