SUNMONTUEWEDTHUFRISAT
Events for the 4th week of November
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End of Moore's Law Challenges and Opportunities: Computer Architecture Perspectives
Mon, Nov 20, 2017 @ 10:30 AM - 12:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Margaret Martonosi, Princeton University
Talk Title: End of Moore's Law Challenges and Opportunities: Computer Architecture Perspectives
Abstract: For decades, Moore's Law and its partner Dennard Scaling have driven technology trends that have enabled exponential performance improvements in computer systems at manageable power dissipation. With the slowing of Moore/Dennard improvements, designers have turned to a range of approaches for extending scaling of computer systems performance and power efficiency. Unfortunately, these scaling gains come at the expense of degraded hardware-software abstraction layers, increased complexity at the hardware-software interface, and increased challenges for software reliability, interoperability, and performance portability This talk will explore the way forward for computer systems designers in this "Post-ISA" era of shifting abstractions. The talk will cover hardware and software design opportunities, methods for formal verification, and a look into the role of future technologies including Quantum Computing.
Biography: Margaret Martonosi is the Hugh Trumbull Adams '35 Professor of Computer Science at Princeton University, where she has been on the faculty since 1994. She is also currently serving a four-year term as Director of the Keller Center for Innovation in Engineering Education. Martonosi's research interests are in computer architecture and mobile computing, with particular focus on power-efficient systems. Her work has included the development of the Wattch power modeling tool and the Princeton ZebraNet mobile sensor network project for the design and real-world deployment of zebra tracking collars in Kenya. Her current research focuses on hardware-software interface approaches to manage heterogeneous parallelism and power-performance tradeoffs in systems ranging from smartphones to chip multiprocessors to large-scale data centers. Martonosi is a Fellow of both IEEE and ACM. Notable awards include the 2010 Princeton University Graduate Mentoring Award, the 2013 Anita Borg Institute Technical Leadership Award, the 2015 ISCA Long-Term Influential Paper Award, and the 2017 ACM SIGMOBILE Test-of-Time Award.
Host: Xuehai Qian, x04459, xuehai.qian@usc.edu
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Gerrielyn Ramos
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Center for Systems and Control (CSC@USC) and Ming Hsieh Institute for Electrical Engineering
Mon, Nov 20, 2017 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Srinivas Shakkottai, Texas A&M University
Talk Title: Towards a Market-mediated Software Defined Communications Ecosystem at the Wireless Edge
Series: Fall 2017 Joint CSC@USC/CommNetS-MHI Seminar Series
Abstract: Current wireless edge networks with tightly coupled PHY/MAC that cater to worst or average case performance lack the agility to best serve legions of heterogeneous applications. Simultaneously, software reconfigurable infrastructure has become increasingly mainstream to the point that per-packet and per-flow decisions can be dynamically controlled at multiple layers of the communications stack.
In this talk, I will describe our efforts at the design of software defined platforms that allow for the implementation of heterogeneous per-packet mechanisms. Key components include antennas with reconfigurable radiation patterns, reconfigurable modulation and coding schemes, and reconfigurable queues for medium access control (MAC). We have two parallel thrusts in this direction. The first is on using legacy hardware and tapping into existing reconfigurability mechanisms available on off-the-shelf wireless access points. The second is on developing a clean-slate programmable PHY/MAC platform on which desired mechanisms that can provide services such as ultra-low latencies (< 5 ms) can be configured as needed.
Tying together these layers, I will describe a market-based platform, FlowBazaar that allows us to measure Quality of Service (QoS) statistics on the wireless edge, to determine the mapping between these statistics and the resultant impact on perceived application performance measured by Quality of Experience (QoE), and to complete the chain by eliciting the end-user to declare the value of obtaining such QoEs using small-scale auctions. We thus enable an ecosystem wherein disparate applications are able to obtain the necessary resources for optimal performance.
Biography: Srinivas Shakkottai received a PhD (2007) in Electrical Engineering, from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He was a post-doctoral scholar in Management Science and Engineering at Stanford University in 2007, and is currently an associate professor at the Dept. of ECE at Texas A&M University. His research interests include content distribution systems, economics of network resource allocation, game theory, wireless networks, and Internet data analytics. Srinivas is the recipient of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency Young Investigator Award (2009) and the NSF Career Award (2012), as well as faculty research awards from Cisco (2008) and Google (2010). He also received The Dept. of ECE Outstanding Professor Award (2013) and was selected as a TEES (College of Engineering) Select Young Faculty Fellow (2014) at Texas A&M University.
Host: Ashutosh Nayyar, ashutosh.nayyar@usc.edu
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Gerrielyn Ramos
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A Cross-Layered Approach to Design Reliable Hardware for Computing Systems
Tue, Nov 21, 2017 @ 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: William H. Robinson, Vanderbilt University
Talk Title: A Cross-Layered Approach to Design Reliable Hardware for Computing Systems
Abstract: Reliability analysis of integrated circuits (ICs) has become a greater concern in the development of computing systems. Technology scaling offers more transistors to enable system-on-a-chip (SoC) integration, but it also means more transistors that can be affected by radiation-induced faults. Designers must consider how those faults impact the entire computing system by including levels of abstraction in both hardware and software. Cross-layered modeling and simulation enables a better understanding of the complex interactions among particle physics, fabrication technology, processor architecture, and the software stack in order to develop reliable computing systems.
This talk describes a novel method of modeling radiation strikes of varying intensities in intra-pipeline combinational logic, while incorporating important characteristics including: (1) logical, electrical, and timing masking factors in circuit operation, (2) automated placement for logic cell adjacency, and (3) well geometry for a charge-sharing-based model of ion strikes. This talk will also highlight: (1) methods for characterizing microprocessors for radiation-induced failures, (2) methods for mitigating faults in microprocessors, and (3) open questions regarding microprocessor resilience.
Biography: William H. Robinson received his B.S. in electrical engineering from the Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University (FAMU) in 1996 and his M.S. in electrical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) in 1998. He received his Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering from Georgia Tech in 2003. In August 2003, Dr. Robinson joined the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) at Vanderbilt University as an Assistant Professor, and he was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in 2010. Currently, he serves as an Associate Dean in the School of Engineering.
Dr. Robinson leads the Security And Fault Tolerance (SAF-T) Research Group at Vanderbilt University, whose mission is to conduct transformational research that addresses the reliability and security of computing systems. He also co-leads the Explorations in Diversifying Engineering Faculty Initiative (EDEFI) (pronounced "edify"), which investigates the institutional, technical, social, and cultural factors that impact the current underrepresentation of African Americans in engineering faculty positions. His major honors include selection for a National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program Award and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Computer Science Study Panel, both in 2008. Dr. Robinson is a Senior Member of both the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). He is a member of the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE), and a lifetime member of the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE).
Host: Murali Annavaram, annavara@usc.edu
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Gerrielyn Ramos
