Fifty Years of ISCA: A data-driven retrospective on key trends

TL;DR

This paper provides a data-driven retrospective analysis of 50 years of ISCA, highlighting key trends and evolution in computer architecture from minicomputers to modern accelerators.

Contribution

It offers a comprehensive analysis of ISCA's history, revealing how the field has evolved through various technological milestones over five decades.

Findings

Identification of major technological shifts in architecture

Trends from minicomputers to accelerators

Insights into the evolution of research focus

Abstract

Computer Architecture, broadly, involves optimizing hardware and software for current and future processing systems. Although there are several other top venues to publish Computer Architecture research, including ASPLOS, HPCA, and MICRO, ISCA (the International Symposium on Computer Architecture) is one of the oldest, longest running, and most prestigious venues for publishing Computer Architecture research. Since 1973, except for 1975, ISCA has been organized annually. Accordingly, this year will be the 50th year of ISCA. Thus, we set out to analyze the past 50 years of ISCA to understand who and what has been driving and innovating computing systems thus far. Our analysis identifies several interesting trends that reflect how ISCA, and Computer Architecture in general, has grown and evolved in the past 50 years, including minicomputers, general-purpose uniprocessor CPUs, multiprocessor and multi-core CPUs, general-purpose GPUs, and accelerators.