[sf-perl] Fwd: [IP] Stanford EE CS Colloq] Computer Architecture is Back * 4:15PM, Wed Jan 31, 2007 in Gates B01

Rich Morin rdm at cfcl.com
Fri Jan 26 07:56:42 PST 2007


 Begin forwarded message:

 From: allison at stanford.edu
 Date: January 26, 2007 10:11:36 AM EST
 Subject: [EE CS Colloq] Computer Architecture is Back * 4:15PM, Wed
 Jan 31, 2007 in Gates B01
 Reply-To: ee380 at shasta.stanford.edu

               Stanford EE Computer Systems Colloquium
                   4:15PM, Wednesday, Jan 31, 2007
          HP Auditorium, Gates Computer Science Building B01
                     http://ee380.stanford.edu[1]

 Topic:    Computer Architecture is Back
            The Berkeley View of the Parallel Computing Research
 Landscape

 Speaker:  Dave Patterson
            EECS, UC Berkeley

 About the talk:

 The sequential processor era is now officially over, as the IT
 industry has bet its future on multiple processors per chip. The
 new trend is doubling the number of cores per chip every two
 years instead the regular doubling of uniprocessor performance.
 This shift toward increasing parallelism is not a triumphant
 stride forward based on breakthroughs in novel software and
 architectures for parallelism; instead, this plunge into
 parallelism is actually a retreat from even greater challenges
 that thwart efficient silicon implementation of traditional
 uniprocessor architectures.

 A diverse group of University of California at Berkeley
 researchers from many backgrounds -- circuit design, computer
 architecture, massively parallel computing, computer-aided
 design, embedded hardware and software, programming languages,
 compilers, scientific programming, and numerical analysis -- met
 for nearly two years to discuss parallelism from these many
 angles. This talk and a technical report are the result. (See
 view.eecs.berkeley.edu)

 We concluded that sneaking up on the problem of parallelism the
 way industry is planning is likely to fail, and we desperately
 need a new solution for parallel hardware and software. Here are
 some of our recommendations:

    * The overarching goal should be to make it easy to write programs
      that execute efficiently on highly parallel computing systems

    * The target should be 1000s of cores per chip, as these chips are
      built from processing elements that are the most efficient in
      MIPS (Million Instructions per Second) per watt, MIPS per area of
      silicon, and MIPS per development dollar.

    * Instead of traditional benchmarks, use 13 Dwarfs to design and
      evaluate parallel programming models and architectures. (A dwarf
      is an algorithmic method that captures a pattern of computation
      and communication.)

    * Autotuners should play a larger role than conventional compilers
      in translating parallel programs.

    * To maximize programmer productivity, future programming models
      must be more human-centric than the conventional focus on
      hardware or applications or formalisms.

    * Traditional operating systems will be deconstructed and operating
      system functionality will be orchestrated using libraries and
      virtual machines.

    * To explore the design space rapidly, use system emulators based
      on Field Programmable Gate Arrays that are highly scalable, low
      cost, and flexible. (see ramp.eecs.berkeley.edu)

 Now that the IT industry is urgently facing perhaps its greatest
 challenge in 50 years, and computer architecture is a necessary
 but not sufficient component to any solution, this talk declares
 that computer architecture is interesting once again.

 About the speaker:

 David A. Patterson has been Professor of Computer Science at the
 University of California, Berkeley since 1977, after receiving
 his all his degrees from UCLA. He is one of the pioneers of both
 RISC and RAID. He co-authored five books, including two on
 computer architecture with John Hennessy; the fourth edition of
 their graduate book was released in September. Past chair of the
 Computer Science Department at U.C. Berkeley and the Computing
 Research Association (CRA), he was elected President of the
 Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) for 2004 to 2006 and
 served on the Information Technology Advisory Committee for the
 U.S. President (PITAC) from 2003 to 2005.

 His work was recognized by education and research awards from ACM
 (Karlstrom Educator Award, Fellow) and IEEE (Von Neumann Medal,
 Mulligan Educator Medal, Johnson Information Storage Award,
 Fellow) and by election to the National Academy of Engineering.
 In 2005 he shared Japan's Computer & Communication award with
 Hennessy and was named to the Silicon Valley Engineering Hall of
 Fame. In 2006 he received the Distinguished Service Award from
 CRA and was elected to both the American Academy of Arts and
 Sciences and to the National Academy of Sciences.

 --- End Forward ---

-- 
http://www.cfcl.com/rdm            Rich Morin
http://www.cfcl.com/rdm/resume     rdm at cfcl.com
http://www.cfcl.com/rdm/weblog     +1 650-873-7841

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