! Aware: Useful Tech & Info: Computers and Systems

- Quantum computers offer the prospect of computation that scales exponentially with data size. Unfortunately, a single bit error can corrupt an exponential amount of data. Quantum mechanics can seem more suited to science fiction than system engineering, yet small quantum devices of 5 to 7 bits have been built in the laboratory, 100-bit devices are on the drawing table now, and emerging quantum technologies promise even greater scalability. Empirical studies of practical quantum architectures are just beginning to appear in the literature. Elementary architectural concepts are still lacking: How do we provide quantum storage, data paths, classical control circuits, parallelism, and system integration? And, crucially, how can we design architectures to reduce error-correction overhead? The authors describe a proposed architecture that uses code teleportation, quantum memory refresh units, dynamic compilation of quantum programs, and scalable error correction to achieve system- level efficiencies. They assert that their work indicates the underlying technology's reliability is crucial; practical architectures will require quantum technologies with error rates between 10 ?6 and 10 ?9 .

Rosetta: Semantic Support for Model-Centered Systems-Level Design ( Perry Alexander, Cindy Kong ; IEEE Computer Magazine 2001-11)

- With the advent of system-on-chip (SoC) technology, the design of small electrical systems has become a systems engineering task. Such tasks require working at high levels of abstraction to build systems by either integrating information from various design domains or modeling different aspects of the same component. Designers of traditional computer-based systems usually rely on component- based techniques that parallel the physical architecture. The model-based approach encompasses the component-- centered approach, treating structural decomposition as a single model in the overall hierarchy. Model-centered semantics and languages let designers concentrate on the data, computation, or communication models that describe complex computer-based SoC requirements. Appropriate design semantics specify each system aspect, and the designer assembles those aspects into models to define complete systems and components. The developers of Rosetta, a heterogeneous systems-level modeling language that supports predictive design analysis, have identified mechanisms for defining and composing models that specify multiple domains of interest from many perspectives. Rosetta requirements and domains define test cases and generate abstract vectors for each test scenario. Several analysis tools are under development for transforming Rosetta into existing analysis environments, and the authors are also developing native analysis tools for symbolic verification and simulation environments. The authors use Rosetta to provide computation models for customized digital and mixed-signal system-specification environments. Other domains to support optical and microelectrical mechanical systems specifications are under consideration.

Polish Students Win Computer Society Design Competition ( Lee Garber ; IEEE Computer Magazine 2001-08)

Guest Editors' Introduction: Early 21st Century Processors ( Sriram Vajapeyam, Mateo Valero ; IEEE Computer Magazine 2001-04)

- The computer architecture arena faces exciting challenges as it attempts to meet the design goals and constraints that new markets, changing applications, and fast-moving semiconductor technology impose.

The Curse of Fast Iron ( James F. Dunnigan ; IEEE Computer Magazine 2001-04)

- More powerful microprocessors, graphics chips, and sound boards are killing commercial strategy games.

Building the IBM 4758 Secure Coprocessor ( Joan G. Dyer, Mark Lindemann, Ronald Perez, Reiner Sailer, Leendert van Doorn, Sean W. Smith, Steve Weingart ; IEEE Computer Magazine 2001-010)

- The authors sought to build a secure coprocessor�defined as a tamper-responding device derived from the Abyss, Citadel, and 4755 work�that would provide a single multipurpose platform third parties could use to develop and deploy secure coprocessor applications, with minimal IBM participation. The project had several goals: ensure that the device could be identified externally, design the device and its soft-ware to be securely configurable and updatable in the field, construct the software architecture to accommodate layers of code from different parties, avoid letting the compromise of one device breach any other's security, and validate all these assertions through an external party. Providing an environment in which applications could run securely forced the designers to focus not only on security mechanisms and their implementation and management, but also on the security policies they must support. Clearly, the hardware on which applications run must be secure, as must the operating system and run-time environment in between, while offering a reasonable API for applications developers. To fix problems in the field and enable fast and inexpensive reaction to changing customer needs, the designers implemented part of the code as firmware rather than as read-only memory. The 4758 project achieved most of its design goals. Currently, the authors are exploring other embedded processors, the addition of a network communication channel, and other form factors, including those appropriate for laptops.

Smart Dust: Communicating with a Cubic-Millimeter Computer ( Brett Warneke, Matt Last, Brian Liebowitz, Kristofer S.J. Pister ; IEEE Computer Magazine 2001-01)

- The Smart Dust project is probing microfabrication technology's limitations to determine whether an autonomous sensing, computing, and communication system can be packed into a cubic-millimeter mote to form the basis of integrated, massively distributed sensor networks.

Reconfigurable Accelerators for Combinatorial Problems ( Marco Platzner ; IEEE Computer Magazine 2000-04)

- Tailoring hardware to a specific algorithm and a specific set of input data can boost execution several fold. One hardware circuit that solves Boolean satisfiability improved execution time by a factor of 140,000 over state-of-the-art software solvers.

PipeRench: A Reconfigurable Architecture and Compiler ( Seth Copen Goldstein, Herman Schmit, Mihai Budiu, Srihari Cadambi, Matt Moe, R. Reed Taylor ; IEEE Computer Magazine 2000-04)

- Reconfigurable computing will change the way computing systems are designed, built, and used. PipeRench, a new reconfigurable fabric, combines the flexibility of general-purpose processors with the efficiency of customized hardware to achieve extreme performance speedup.

Configurable Computing: Technology and Applications ( Ranga R. Vemuri, Randolph E. Harr ; IEEE Computer Magazine 2000-04)

- Early configurable, custom-computing machines, although successful, had long reconfiguration times and rather inflexible board-level architectures. Advances in VLSI have led to coarse-grained reconfigurable data paths, which outperform traditional instruction-set processors on various problems.

Beyond Bits: The Future of Quantum Information Processing ( Andrew M. Steane, Eleanor G. Rieffel ; IEEE Computer Magazine 2000-01)

- Two of the 20th century's most powerful ideas, quantum mechanics and computer science, are uniting into a yet more powerful body of knowledge, giving birth to new technologies and applications in a wide variety of industries.

Exposing the Mythical MIPS Year ( Robert D. Silverman ; IEEE Computer Magazine 1999-08)

- MIPS can be a useful measure of processor speed, and MIPS years can be a useful measure of work. But the MIPS year has been classically misapplied and misused as a measurement of the amount of effort needed to break and compare cryptographic keys.

The Future of Systems Research ( John Hennessy ; IEEE Computer Magazine 1999-08)

- After 20 years in academia and the Silicon Valley, the new Provost of Stanford University calls for a shift in focus for systems research. Performance�long the centerpiece�needs to share the spotlight with availability, maintainability, and other qualities.

The Emergence of Cellular Computing ( Moshe Sipper ; IEEE Computer Magazine 1999-07)

- Von Neumann's complex-processor architecture is the ruling yin of computer technology, but cellular computing promises to be the new yang.

Computer Systems Research: The Pressure Is On ( Krishna Kavi, James C. Browne, Anand Tripathi ; IEEE Computer Magazine 1999-01)

- As applications become more demanding, computer systems research must not only redefine traditional roles but also unite diverse disciplines in a common goal: To make quantum leaps toward next-generation systems.

A New Direction for Computer Architecture Research ( Christoforos E. Kozyrakis, David A. Patterson ; IEEE Computer Magazine 1998-11)

- Current computer architecture research continues to have a bias for the past in that it focuses on desktop and server applications. In our view, a different computing domain�personal mobile computing�will play a significant role in driving technology in the next decade. This domain will pose a different set of requirements for microprocessors and could redirect the emphasis of computer architecture research.

The Advent of "Green" Computer Design ( Lee Goldberg ; IEEE Computer Magazine 1998-09)

The IA-64 Architecture at Work ( Carole Dulong ; IEEE Computer Magazine 1998-07)

- Two key architectural features�predication and control speculation�will enable IA-64 compilers to extract instruction-level parallelism. To show how compilers will use IA-64 instructions, the author uses code fragments from the pointer-chasing problem�an inherently serial code�and from a nested loop with difficult-to-predict branches.

Performance Analysis and Its Impact on Design ( Pradip Bose, Thomas M. Conte ; IEEE Computer Magazine 1998-05)

- Architects use models of a proposed processor and its workloads to guide the design process. But how do you develop and validate such models before actually fabricating and testing a real chip? This is the question performance analysis seeks to answer.

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