Research
My research focuses on the design of the
highest performance uniprocessors of a current generation,
along with their supporting memory systems.
Most of my research efforts of the past 5 years involved
the development of a new paradigm for circa 2000 and beyond processors.
These efforts led to the development of the
multiscalar paradigm --
a paradigm that has served as the starting point for
over half a dozen major research projects worldwide.
My current research efforts are along three broad themes:
(i) continuing to develop the multiscalar paradigm,
(ii) investigating "beyond multiscalar" issues,
i.e., processing issues in the 2005-2010 era, and
(iii) understanding program behavior and developing generic mechanisms
to exploit it.
In the multiscalar arena, we continue to study memory systems
to support multiscalar processing, support to allow the microarchitecture
to span the multiscalar-multiprocessor spectrum, software optimizations
and support for multiscalar processors, and ways of extracting
multiscalar-specific information in a binary compatible manner.
In the "beyond multiscalar" arena, we are starting to take a fresh look
at memory hierarchies. Whereas the instruction processing model has
changed dramatically in the past decade, memory hierarchies have stayed
pretty much the same for 2 decades. We are investigating alternate
memory hierarchy organizations for the billion-transistor era.
We are also beginning to take a look at how other aspects of the
computing program, e.g., algorithms and compiling might be different
in this era. In the understanding program behavior arena, my research group
is looking at the (dynamic) reusability of computation -- why it occurs, and
how to exploit it.
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