AENAO: high-performance, power-aware and reliable processors and computer systems

在几乎所有现代电子设备（如计算机、手机和网络路由器）的核心，至少有一个处理器是设备的“大脑”。处理器处理以数字表示的信息。处理器非常有用，因为它们可以通过传感器（例如，麦克风）和致动器（例如，演讲者）-遵循预先指定的但复杂的一组动作。处理器在科学探索中也非常有用，因为它们可以评估复杂的物理现象模型，如化学，生物和行星间的相互作用，这些模型太昂贵或不切实际，无法以其他方式进行研究。今天，许多日常活动和许多科学探索都依赖于优化的廉价处理器。从历史上看，有可能不断提高处理器的性能和其他特性（例如，能耗），同时降低成本。一台典型的计算机在80年代初的成本数万，而今天只有几百美元，而强大的1000倍。许多通信和计算行业都依赖于这一趋势。改进处理器的一个关键机制是计算机体系结构，它研究如何在现有制造技术的基础上构建处理器，同时考虑这些处理器将用于的应用。计算机体系结构面临着持续的挑战，原因有二：（1）底层技术的属性随着时间的推移而发生显著变化，（2）应用程序也是如此。这项研究旨在通过解决基础制造技术不断萎缩带来的新挑战来改进处理器，以及随着基于处理器的设备变得无处不在而出现的新应用。解决的挑战包括性能，设计复杂性和能源消耗。如果要保持处理器性能和成本不断提高的历史趋势，就必须发展这种技术。从智能手机到超级计算机等各种基于处理器的设备都将受益于这项研究。

At the core of virtually all modern electronic devices such as computers, cell phones, and network routers there is at least one processor that is the "brains" of the device. Processors manipulate information represented as numbers. Processors are extremely useful because they can interact with the environment - via sensors (e.g., a microphone) and actuators (e.g., a speaker) - following a prespecified, yet complex, set of actions. Processors are also extremely useful in scientific exploration as they can evaluate complex models of physical phenomena such as chemical, biological and inter-planetary interactions that are too expensive or impractical to study otherwise. Today many everyday activities and much of scientific exploration rely on the availability of optimized, inexpensive processors. Historically, it was possible to continuously improve the performance and other characteristics of processors (e.g., energy consumption) while reducing cost. A typical computer in the early 80's cost several tens of thousands, while today just a few hundred dollars while being 1000 times as powerful. Much of the communications and computing industry relies on this trend. A key mechanism for improving processors is computer architecture, which studies how to build processors given the available manufacturing technologies while taking into consideration the applications that these processors will be used for. Computer architecture faces continuous challenges for two reasons: (1) the properties of the underlying technology change significantly over time, and (2) so do the applications. This research is targeted at improving processors by addressing new challenges that stem from the continuous shrinking of the underlying manufacturing technology and the new applications that have emerged as processor-based devices have become ubiquitous. The challenges addressed include performance, design complexity, and energy consumption. Such techniques must be developed if the historical trends of advance in processor performance and cost are to be maintained. A variety of processor-based devices ranging from smart-phones to supercomputers will benefit from this research.