What Does the Post-Moore Era Mean for Research Software Engineering?

TL;DR

The paper discusses how the post-Moore era, characterized by hardware heterogeneity and specialization, impacts research software engineering, highlighting challenges, opportunities, and the need for adaptation in software practices.

Contribution

It provides a position on the implications of post-Moore hardware paradigms for research software engineering and suggests directions for future preparation and adaptation.

Findings

Hardware heterogeneity offers new opportunities for optimization.

Challenges include adapting software to diverse architectures.

Preparing for paradigm shifts is crucial for future research software engineering.

Abstract

We are entering the post-Moore era where we no longer enjoy the free ride of the performance growth from simply shrinking the transistor features. However, this does not necessarily mean that we are entering a dark era of computing. On the contrary, sustaining the performance growth of computing in the post-Moore era itself is cutting-edge research. Concretely, heterogeneity and hardware specialization are becoming promising approaches in hardware designs. However, these are paradigm shifts in computer architecture. So what does the post-Moore era mean for research software engineering? This position paper addresses such a question by summarizing possible challenges and opportunities for research software engineering in the post-Moore era. We then briefly discuss what is missing and how we prepare to tackle such challenges and exploit opportunities for the future of computing.