Computer architecture research at UW CSE covers the structure, organization, implementation, and performance of the building blocks of computer systems. Many of our faculty and students take an interdisciplinary approach to research that crosses multiple layers of the systems stack, from hardware to programming languages ​​to applications, as part of our Sampa group, a collaborative effort focused on the architecture of computers, operating systems, and compilers. and programming languages ​​to make computer systems faster, more reliable, and more energy efficient. Another interdisciplinary group, SAMPL, is a collaboration between researchers from Sampa, Computer Systems Lab, MODE Lab, and PLSE. That group is advancing machine learning research to address problems that span multiple layers of the system stack, including deep learning frameworks, specialized hardware for training and inference, differential programming, and more.

By focusing on improving reliability and efficiency, identifying and eliminating performance limitations, and leveraging alternative computing substrates such as DNA as a data storage medium, we are helping to shape the future of computing. Notable projects that position Allen School at the forefront of computer architecture research include:

Fuzzy Computing - We explore the balance between precision and performance and seek to harness the power of many applications, including augmented reality, machine learning, and big data analytics, to tolerate inaccurate computing at various levels. Trading precision for approximation in computing, storage and communication, our goal is to develop comprehensive solutions across the entire system stack that will improve energy efficiency while improving system performance and characteristics.
Emerging Applications: Applications are often a major driver of progress in computer systems architecture. We seek to develop solutions for large-scale data analysis, which simplifies writing irregular applications with near-optimal system utilization, and better support for scripting languages ​​and optimization of web browsing on mobile devices.
Emerging Technologies: The advent of new core technologies is another main driver of new systems. The emergence of large and fast non-volatile memory (NVRAM) gives us the opportunity to reinvent the design of the operating system. Another interesting line of research focuses on engineered DNA molecules, which offer life-saving applications by enabling computation within living cells.
The UW CSE IT Architecture Group has a proud history of innovation with tangible impact in the field of IT. The now ubiquitous simultaneous multithreading was developed here. Our WaveScalar project demonstrated that imperative programs can run in the form of data flow in a highly scalable architecture. We also demonstrate that it is possible to make multicore systems more reliable by controlling inherent non-determinism and automatically avoiding errors without compromising performance.

Our faculty is highly entrepreneurial and various technologies have been successfully commercialized based on research conducted at UW CSE. Many of our alumni have joined industry leaders such as Amazon, AMD, Apple, Google, and Microsoft, or have accepted teaching positions at prestigious academic institutions.