CAREER: An Evolutionary Approach to Hardware/Software Collaborative Design

现代计算机系统设计者必须考虑更多的因素，而不仅仅是原始性能。热输出、功耗、可靠性、测试和安全性正迅速成为首要关注的问题。尽管有各种激励因素，优化计算机系统的研究工作在历史上一直针对系统堆栈中的单个逻辑层，无论是应用程序代码，操作系统，虚拟机，微架构还是电路。然而，由于现代系统和应用程序交互的复杂性不断增加，孤立地针对单个层的解决方案正在失去动力。降低这种复杂性的一个有效方法是采用一个整体解决方案，该解决方案将多层硬件和软件结合起来，使软件能够在运行时适应和响应不断变化的系统条件。在这个项目中，我们正在探索各种硬件和软件设计层之间的共生关系，以及相应的机会，以提供性能，功耗，可靠性，和温度问题。我们专注于为现有的硬件和软件添加轻量级的、定义明确的反馈通道。同时，我们使用虚拟执行环境（VEE）来整理来自各个层的信息，并通过根据需要修改应用程序或操作系统行为来编排自适应解决方案。该项目提供了重构操作系统和其他系统层的能力，以消除复杂的硬件特性。它还为底层硬件提供了虚拟化优势。最重要的是，它直接解决了对可扩展且简单的解决方案的迫切需求，以应对现代和新兴的计算挑战

Modern computer system designers must consider many more factors than just raw performance. Thermal output, power consumption, reliability, testing, and security are quickly becoming first-order concerns. Despite various motivating factors, research efforts in optimizing computer systems have historically targeted a single logical layer in the system stack, whether it has been application code, operating systems, virtual machines, microarchitecture, or circuits. Solutions targeting a single layer in isolation are losing momentum, however, given the ever-increasing complexity of modern system and application interaction. An effective way to mitigate this complexity is to employ a holistic solution that considers multiple layers of hardware and software in conjunction, allowing software to adapt and react to changing system conditions at run time.In this project, we are exploring the symbiotic relationship between the various hardware and software design layers, and the corresponding opportunity to provide cohesive solutions to performance, power, reliability, and temperature problems. We are focusing on adding lightweight, well-defined feedback channels to existing hardware and software. Meanwhile, we use a virtual execution environment (VEE) to collate information from various layers and to orchestrate adaptive solutions by modifying the application or OS behavior as necessary. The project provides the ability to re-factor the OS and other system layers to remove complex hardware idiosyncrasies. It also provides virtualization benefits to the underlying hardware. Above all, it directly addresses the pressing need for scalable yet simple solutions to modern and emerging computing challenges