The three year REU Site program "ESCAPE: Experimental Study on Computer Architecture and Performance Evaluation" at the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) will focus on research for computer architecture, VLSI design and performance evaluation. Our program will include courses and seminars for the REU participants to learn the necessary infrastructure for research on computer architecture and microprocessor design. Students will perform literature surveys and design projects with faculty members. REU participants will then focus on research projects with guidance from faculty mentors. Key areas include: (1) workload reduction to reduce simulation time; (2) effective power estimation techniques using hardware and software; (3) benchmark creation for emerging workloads; (4) resource sensitivity analysis with respect to performance and power consumption; (5) development of branch prediction schemes; (6) leakage power reduction techniques; and (7) cache replacement techniques. The proposed research projects are critical issues in processor design and system-on-chip design. The findings from the REU program will help to identify new ways to improve processor performance. The proposed research topics for the REU site will benefit both industrial microprocessor design labs and academic institutes.
The REU team will aim to recruit at least 50% of the participants from underrepresented minorities, women, and students with disabilities. All research projects and reports from the REU participants will be posted on the REU web site. All REU participants are encouraged to continue working with their REU Site faculty mentors to write and publish papers in the subsequent semesters. Our overall goal is to motivate the participant undergraduate students to pursue research careers in computer architecture and microprocessor design or in science and engineering more broadly, and to take their first steps toward becoming independent researchers.
