No.134 Advances in Heterogeneous Computing from Hardware to Software

This​ ​Shonan​ ​seminar​ ​​brings​ ​together​ ​a​ ​mix​ ​of​ ​practitioners​ ​and​ ​researchers​ ​from​ ​industry​ ​and academia​ ​to​ ​discuss​ ​the​ ​latest​ ​advances​ ​and​ ​challenges​ ​in​ ​heterogeneous​ ​computing.​ ​With​ ​increasingly diminishing​ ​returns​ ​in​ ​power​ ​and​ ​performance​ ​due​ ​to​ ​the​ ​slowing​ ​of​ ​Dennard​ ​scaling​ ​and​ ​Moore’s​ ​law, the​ ​heterogeneous​ ​computing​ ​community​ ​is​ ​faced​ ​with​ ​a​ ​demanding​ ​set​ ​of​ ​challenges:

• provide​ ​increasing​ ​compute​ ​performance,
• while​ ​improving​ ​energy​ ​efficiency,
• without​ ​burdening​ ​programmers​ ​with​ ​additional​ ​complexity.

Solutions​ ​to​ ​these​ ​problems​ ​increasingly​ ​rely​ ​on​ ​interdisciplinary​ ​research​ ​and​ ​hardware/software co-design​ ​to​ ​specialize​ ​the​ ​hardware​ ​and​ ​software​ ​stack​ ​for​ ​a​ ​particular​ ​problem​ ​or​ ​application​ ​domain. Examples​ ​of​ ​recent​ ​projects​ ​are​ ​Microsoft’s​ ​Catapult​ ​datacenter​ ​accelerator​ ​which​ ​is​ ​used​ ​in​ ​production to​ ​accelerate​ ​Bing​ ​ranking​ ​and​ ​Azure​ ​networking​ ​on​ ​a​ ​cloud​ ​of​ ​reprogrammable​ ​FPGAs,​ ​Google’s Tensor​ ​Processing​ ​Unit​ ​(TPU)​ ​–​ ​a​ ​custom​ ​application-specific​ ​integrated​ ​circuit​ ​(ASIC)​ ​developed​ ​to accelerate​ ​machine​ ​learning,​ ​and​ ​Amazon’s​ ​Annapurna​ ​ASIC​ ​used​ ​to​ ​accelerate​ ​network​ ​management in​ ​Amazon​ ​datacenters.

Over​ ​the​ ​course​ ​of​ ​this​ ​seminar,​ ​attendees​ ​​participate​ ​in​ ​discussions​ ​on​ ​the​ ​latest​ ​topics​ ​and​ ​trends in​ ​heterogeneous​ ​computing.​ ​We​ ​​hold​ ​sessions​ ​covering​ ​hardware​ ​and​ ​computer​ ​architecture, development​ ​tools,​ ​operating​ ​systems​ ​and​ ​runtimes,​ ​programming​ ​models,​ ​and​ ​application​ ​workloads. These​ ​sessions​ ​include​ ​a​ ​mix​ ​of​ ​talks​ ​and​ ​open​ ​discussions​ ​led​ ​by​ ​experts​ ​in​ ​their​ ​related​ ​areas. There​ ​is​ ​ample​ ​opportunity​ ​for​ ​one​ ​on​ ​one​ ​interaction​ ​in​ ​this​ ​intimate​ ​format​ ​which​ ​we​ ​expect​ ​will allow​ ​attendees​ ​to​ ​develop​ ​new​ ​connections​ ​and​ ​research​ ​directions​ ​for​ ​future​ ​collaborations.