Research Area: Computer Architecture

Our department is engaged in research in several exciting new areas within computer architecture.

Subareas: Accelerators, Clockless Logic, Energy-efficient Computing, Security

Energy-Efficient Systems: With the explosive growth in mobile devices, there has been a push towards increasing energy efficiency of computation for longer battery life. Reducing power consumption is also important for desktop computing to alleviate challenges of heat removal and power delivery. A special focus in our department has been on the development of energy-efficient graphics hardware. Another area of future interest is energy-harvesting systems, which are ultra-low-power systems that operate on energy scavenged from the environment.

Asynchronous or Clockless Computing: Asynchronous VLSI design is poised to play a key role in the design of the next generation of microelectronic chips. By dispensing with global clocks and instead using flexible handshaking between components, asynchronous design offers the benefits of lower power consumption, greater ease of integration of multiple cores, and greater robustness to manufacturing and runtime variation. Our researchers work on all aspects of asynchronous design, including circuits, architectures, and CAD tools. A key area of interest is application to network-on-a-chip for integration of multiple heterogeneous cores.

Hardware-Enhanced Security: CPU vendors are increasingly deploying hardware to support security, such as Intel’s Software Guard Extensions. We are studying hardware/software co-design to support secure execution environments that are efficient and easy to program.

If you need assistance contacting a faculty member, please email the External Relations team.