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2nd Workshop on Computer Architecture Research
Directions |
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CARD 2008 |
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Held in conjunction with the 14th
Annual IEEE/ACM International Symposium on High-Performance Computer
Architecture http://www.cs.utah.edu/hpca08/ |
Sunday, February 17, 2008 |
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Visit CARD 2007
site. The CARD 2007 panel video and audio files are available for each of the
four mini-panels. CARD 2007 video/audio files have been downloaded more than
5000 times. Description |
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Decreasing transistor feature sizes simultaneously offer
increased opportunities and challenges for computer architecture researcher
and designers. With hundreds of millions or billions of transistors, computer
architects can propose complex microarchitectural enhancements, increase
processor functionality, or implement multiple processors-per-chip. On the
other hand, among other problems, shrinking transistor widths also lead to
increased static power dissipation; higher power densities, which require
active thermal management; and decreased reliability (due to soft-errors and
circuit degradation). The future directions of such open research problems are
unclear. The traditional way to tackle open research problems is for experts
in the field to write papers and present those papers in conferences. After
each presentation, other experts may ask one or two detailed questions that
are often too complex and assume too much background knowledge for many
audience members. After the session, the experts may assemble to discuss
finer points, reach some consensus and then go off to their respective bases
to do the next generation of research to write the next paper. While such a model is fine for the experts, it often is
not very helpful to an average audience member. Instead, a direct discussion
between experts would be far more useful. Such a discussion, properly
moderated by another expert, could quickly focus in on what are accepted
results and parameters of the subject, what are the open questions and areas
of disagreement of the subject and what are the most promising approaches to
those open problems. Audience questions, properly filtered by the moderator to
ensure relevance, would further guide the discussion. Accordingly, the purpose of this workshop is to serve as
a forum in which experts in each field can debate the state of the field and
future directions. The format is designed to quickly focus on areas of
disagreement, rather than expounding on areas of agreement, which,
presumably, have ceased to be controversial, at least between the two
panelists. The hope is that the workshop will be useful to a
diverse audience from a graduate student looking for good thesis topic areas
to a senior researcher who wants to hear the opinions of other area experts. The focus of this year's CARD workshop will be on
multi-core processors. The specific panels and panelists is to be determined. |
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Organizers |
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University of Texas |
University of Rhode Island |
Freescale Semiconductor, Inc. |
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