Collaborative Research: Variability-Aware Software for Efficient Computing with Nanoscale Devices

摘要：Variability ExpeditionProject：随着半导体制造商制造越来越小的组件，纳米级的电路和芯片变得越来越不可靠，生产成本也越来越高。不再像精密凿刻的机器一样有严格的公差。现代计算实际上忽略了底层系统组件在设备之间的行为的可变性、它们随时间的磨损或计算系统所处的环境。这使得它们昂贵，脆弱，甚至容易受到环境或组件故障的最小变化的影响。我们设想一个计算世界，系统组件-由主动软件领导-定期监测，预测和适应制造系统的可变性。改变软件与硬件交互的方式，是以更低的成本保持过去40年来计算性能的根本性进步的最佳希望。Variability Expedition从根本上重新思考了刚性，确定性的硬件-软件接口，提出了一类新的计算机器，不仅具有自适应性，而且具有高能效。这些机器将能够发现硬件变化的性质和程度，开发抽象来捕获这些变化，并在软件堆栈中从编译器，运行时到应用程序中进行调整。由此产生的计算机系统将工作并继续工作，同时使用性能变化或随着时间和技术的发展而变得不可靠的组件。因此，流畅的软件-硬件接口将减轻制造系统的可变性，并使机器鲁棒、可靠，并对不断变化的操作条件做出响应。可变性探险汇集了加州大学圣地亚哥分校和加州大学欧文分校的加州电信和信息技术研究所（Calit 2），以及加州大学洛杉矶分校、密歇根大学、斯坦福大学和伊利诺伊大学香槟分校的研究人员的资源。凭借硬件方面的工艺技术、架构和设计工具以及软件方面的操作系统、编译器和语言方面的专业知识，该团队还拥有驱动和评估研究所需的系统实施和应用专业知识，并通过无线传感、软件无线电和移动的平台中的应用驱动程序将研究成果转化为实践。一次成功的远征将极大地改变计算领域。通过重新架构软件，使其在一个监控和适应成为常态的世界中工作，它将实现更强大、更高效、更经济的系统，这些系统不仅能够预测和抵御硬件故障，还能够预测和抵御其他类型的软件错误甚至攻击。这种新的模式将适用于嵌入式、移动的、桌面和服务器级计算机器的整个范围，在传感器信息处理、多媒体渲染、软件无线电、搜索、医学成像和其他重要应用中产生特别的收益。改变硬件和软件之间的关系为整合研究和教育提供了宝贵的机会，这次考察将建立在与正式和非正式领域的教育合作伙伴建立的合作基础上，以促进跨学科的教学，培训，学习和研究。该团队已经建立了强大的工业和社区外展关系，以确保成功，并通过辅导和暑期学校计划的组合接触到高中学生。可变性考察将使本科生和研究生参与软件，硬件和系统研究，同时促进各级代表性不足的群体的参与，并在学术界和工业界广泛传播成果。

Abstract: The Variability ExpeditionProject: Variability-Aware Software for Efficient Computing with Nanoscale DevicesAs semiconductor manufacturers build ever smaller components, circuits and chips at the nano scale become less reliable and more expensive to produce ? no longer behaving like precisely chiseled machines with tight tolerances. Modern computing is effectively ignorant of the variability in behavior of underlying system components from device to device, their wear-out over time, or the environment in which the computing system is placed. This makes them expensive, fragile and vulnerable to even the smallest changes in the environment or component failures. We envision a computing world where system components -- led by proactive software -- routinely monitor, predict and adapt to the variability of manufactured systems. Changing the way software interacts with hardware offers the best hope for perpetuating the fundamental gains in computing performance at lower cost of the past 40 years. The Variability Expedition fundamentally rethinks the rigid, deterministic hardware-software interface, to propose a new class of computing machines that are not only adaptive but also highly energy efficient. These machines will be able to discover the nature and extent of variation in hardware, develop abstractions to capture these variations, and drive adaptations in the software stack from compilers, runtime to applications. The resulting computer systems will work and continue working while using components that vary in performance or grow less reliable over time and across technology generations. A fluid software-hardware interface will thus mitigate the variability of manufactured systems and make machines robust, reliable and responsive to the changing operating conditions.The Variability Expedition marshals the resources of researchers at the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2) at UC San Diego and UC Irvine, as well as UCLA, University of Michigan, Stanford and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. With expertise in process technology, architecture, and design tools on the hardware side, and in operating systems, compilers and languages on the software side, the team also has the system implementation and applications expertise needed to drive and evaluate the research as well as transition the research accomplishments into practice via application drivers in wireless sensing, software radio and mobile platforms. A successful Expedition will dramatically change the computing landscape. By re-architecting software to work in a world where monitoring and adaptation are the norm, it will achieve more robust, efficient and affordable systems that are able to predict and withstand not only hardware failures, but other kinds of software bugs or even attacks. The new paradigm will apply across the entire spectrum of embedded, mobile, desktop and server-class computing machines, yielding particular gains in sensor information processing, multimedia rendering, software radios, search, medical imaging and other important applications. Transforming the relationship between hardware and software presents valuable opportunities to integrate research and education, and this Expedition will build on established collaborations with educator-partners in formal and informal arenas to promote interdisciplinary teaching, training, learning and research. The team has built strong industrial and community outreach ties to ensure success and reach out to high-school students through a combination of tutoring and summer school programs. The Variability Expedition will engage undergraduate and graduate students in software, hardware and systems research, while promoting participation by underrepresented groups at all levels and broadly disseminating results within academia and industry.