HARSH 2014

Workshop on Highly-Reliable Power-Efficient Embedded Designs

February 15-16th, 2014, Orlando, Florida
In conjunction with HPCA-2014, CGO-2014, and PPoPP-2014
Submissions here
Questions harsh2014@easychair.org

HARSH-2014 will provide a unique forum for the discussion of the challenges in the design and operation of harsh environment-capable embedded processors.

Nowadays, embedded chips are deployed almost everywhere, from mobile phones to on-board electronics in automobiles and satellites. Different from conventional microprocessor designs, the operation conditions of embedded processors are severely constrained by the environment. For example, in aerospace applications, the computer installed on Mars rover "Curiosity" has to tolerate extreme space radiation and temperatures, operate at low power, and provide enough computation capability to perform mission-critical tasks. Embedded designs for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) also encounter extremely challenging design requirements. Despite their tight power budget, UAV chips demand significant throughput for real-time high-speed image processing. In the context of oil and gas exploration and extraction, embedded processors can be found even on the drill string itself, to process sensor inputs in real time while withstanding high temperatures and humidity levels.

To guarantee reliability across these drastically diverse environments, the design and operation of embedded processors should not be solely confined to the chip but traverse different layers in the computing system, involving firmware, operating system, applications, as well as power management units and communication interfaces. The goal of HARSH-2014 is to facilitate the exchange of the latest ideas, insights, and knowledge related to all critical aspects of new-generation harsh environment-capable embedded processors, including micro-architectural approaches, cross-stack hardware/software techniques, and emerging challenges and opportunities. We hope to attract a group of interdisciplinary researchers from academia, industry, and government research labs.

In addition to the presentation of selected paper submissions, keynote speakers will be invited to kick-off the workshop sessions and a "Best Paper" award will be presented at the conclusion of the workshop. To encourage discussion between participants, HARSH-2014 will organize dedicated programs for discussion between presenters and the audience.

Topics of interest include but are not limited to:

1. Architecture design and implementation for highly-reliable power-efficient embedded processors:
   • http://1.www.s81c.com/i/v17/bullets/ibm_lg_bullet_grey_on.gif); height: 16px; clear: left; background-position: 0px 13px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat;">Architectural approaches for reliability assurance under very-low power budgets.
   • http://1.www.s81c.com/i/v17/bullets/ibm_lg_bullet_grey_on.gif); height: 16px; clear: left; background-position: 0px 13px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat;">Availability, soft-error tolerance and recovery issues.
   • http://1.www.s81c.com/i/v17/bullets/ibm_lg_bullet_grey_on.gif); height: 16px; clear: left; background-position: 0px 13px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat;">Highly-reliable cache/memory hierarchies.
   • http://1.www.s81c.com/i/v17/bullets/ibm_lg_bullet_grey_on.gif); height: 16px; clear: left; background-position: 0px 13px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat;">Massive heterogeneous processing capabilities.
   • http://1.www.s81c.com/i/v17/bullets/ibm_lg_bullet_grey_on.gif); height: 16px; clear: left; background-position: 0px 13px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat;">Power management techniques.
   • http://1.www.s81c.com/i/v17/bullets/ibm_lg_bullet_grey_on.gif); height: 16px; clear: left; background-position: 0px 13px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat;">Very-low power, reliable real-time processing.
   • http://1.www.s81c.com/i/v17/bullets/ibm_lg_bullet_grey_on.gif); height: 16px; clear: left; background-position: 0px 13px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat;">Specialized accelerator architectures and unique designs.
   • http://1.www.s81c.com/i/v17/bullets/ibm_lg_bullet_grey_on.gif); height: 16px; clear: left; background-position: 0px 13px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat;">Reusable and/or reconfigurable embedded designs.
   • http://1.www.s81c.com/i/v17/bullets/ibm_lg_bullet_grey_on.gif); height: 16px; clear: left; background-position: 0px 13px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat;">Packaging and cooling.
2. Cross-stack hardware/software techniques:
   • http://1.www.s81c.com/i/v17/bullets/ibm_lg_bullet_grey_on.gif); height: 16px; clear: left; background-position: 0px 13px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat;">Cross-stack approaches for reliability assurance under very-low power budgets.
   • http://1.www.s81c.com/i/v17/bullets/ibm_lg_bullet_grey_on.gif); height: 32px; clear: left; background-position: 0px 13px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat;">Reliability- and power-aware operating systems, compilers, workload managers, firmware and other software.
   • http://1.www.s81c.com/i/v17/bullets/ibm_lg_bullet_grey_on.gif); height: 16px; clear: left; background-position: 0px 13px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat;">Workload analysis and optimization for reliable low-power embedded systems.
3. Applications:
   • http://1.www.s81c.com/i/v17/bullets/ibm_lg_bullet_grey_on.gif); height: 32px; clear: left; background-position: 0px 13px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat;">Aerospace: unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), planetary rovers and space probes, satellites, avionic systems, etc.
   • http://1.www.s81c.com/i/v17/bullets/ibm_lg_bullet_grey_on.gif); height: 32px; clear: left; background-position: 0px 13px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat;">Medical support: lifesaving monitors, portable medical devices, high-end imaging systems, etc.
   • http://1.www.s81c.com/i/v17/bullets/ibm_lg_bullet_grey_on.gif); height: 32px; clear: left; background-position: 0px 13px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat;">Oil and gas exploration and extraction: unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs), measurement while drilling (MWD), logging while drilling (LWD), etc.
   • http://1.www.s81c.com/i/v17/bullets/ibm_lg_bullet_grey_on.gif); height: 16px; clear: left; background-position: 0px 13px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat;">Aerial surveillance.
   • http://1.www.s81c.com/i/v17/bullets/ibm_lg_bullet_grey_on.gif); height: 16px; clear: left; background-position: 0px 13px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat;">Disaster search, rescue, and relief.
   • http://1.www.s81c.com/i/v17/bullets/ibm_lg_bullet_grey_on.gif); height: 16px; clear: left; background-position: 0px 13px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat;">Novel applications for highly-reliable low-power embedded chips.

Organizing Committee

• http://1.www.s81c.com/i/v17/bullets/ibm_lg_bullet_grey_on.gif); height: 22px; clear: left; background-position: 0px 13px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat;">Augusto Vega (IBM)
• http://1.www.s81c.com/i/v17/bullets/ibm_lg_bullet_grey_on.gif); height: 22px; clear: left; background-position: 0px 13px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat;">Xuan Zhang (Harvard University)
• http://1.www.s81c.com/i/v17/bullets/ibm_lg_bullet_grey_on.gif); height: 22px; clear: left; background-position: 0px 13px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat;">David Brooks (Harvard University)
• http://1.www.s81c.com/i/v17/bullets/ibm_bullet_grey_on.png); height: 22px; clear: left; background-position: 0px 13px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat;">Alper Buyuktosunoglu (IBM)
• http://1.www.s81c.com/i/v17/bullets/ibm_lg_bullet_grey_on.gif); height: 22px; clear: left; background-position: 0px 13px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat;">Pradip Bose (IBM)
  

  Program Committee

  TBA