Abstract: In future large-scale multi-core microprocessors, hard errors and process variations will create dynamic heterogeneity, whereby performance and power characteristics differ among the cores in an unanticipated manner. Under this scenario, naïve assignments of applications to cores degraded by various faults and variations may result in large performance losses and power inefficiencies. We propose scheduling algorithms based on Artificial Intelligence search techniques that account for this future uncertainty in core characteristics. These thread assignment policies effectively match the capabilities of each degraded core with the requirements of the applications, achieving a power-performance efficiency on par with a baseline eight core chip multiprocessor with no degradation. We also discuss our recent work in efficiently marrying reconfigurable logic with chip multiprocessors.

Biography: Dave Albonesi is an Associate Professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and a member of the Computer Systems Laboratory. Prior to joining Cornell in 2004, he spent eight years as a faculty member at the University of Rochester, and ten years in management and development in the computer industry. His research group investigates adaptive, power-efficient, and reliability-aware computer architectures, and multicore architectures exploiting new technologies.