21st Century Computer Architecture
Mark D. Hill, Sarita Adve, Luis Ceze, Mary Jane Irwin, David Kaeli,, Margaret Martonosi, Josep Torrellas, Thomas F. Wenisch, David Wood, and, Katherine Yelick

TL;DR
This paper reviews the evolution of computer architecture in the 21st century, emphasizing its role in enabling ICT innovations amid approaching technology limits and advocating for integrated, multi-layered system development.
Contribution
It highlights the shift in architecture focus from speed to enabling infrastructure, emphasizing the need for cross-layer innovation as technology scaling slows.
Findings
Performance growth attributed equally to technology and architecture since 1985
Future architecture must focus on enabling ICT infrastructure without relying solely on technology scaling
Opportunities for innovation require collaboration across ICT layers
Abstract
Because most technology and computer architecture innovations were (intentionally) invisible to higher layers, application and other software developers could reap the benefits of this progress without engaging in it. Higher performance has both made more computationally demanding applications feasible (e.g., virtual assistants, computer vision) and made less demanding applications easier to develop by enabling higher-level programming abstractions (e.g., scripting languages and reusable components). Improvements in computer system cost-effectiveness enabled value creation that could never have been imagined by the field's founders (e.g., distributed web search sufficiently inexpensive so as to be covered by advertising links). The wide benefits of computer performance growth are clear. Recently, Danowitz et al. apportioned computer performance growth roughly equally between…
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Taxonomy
TopicsCloud Computing and Resource Management · Distributed and Parallel Computing Systems
