15-749 Post-von Neumann Computer Architecture

12 units, Carnegie Mellon University

Computing has been dominated by von Neumann CPU architectures for seventy years. The von Neumann architecture is familiar and flexible, but it is also extremely inefficient, wasting upwards of 99 of energy. As computing is now energylimited across all scales, from IoT to data center, von Neumanns inefficiency can no longer be tolerated. Recently, industry has adopted heterogeneous accelerator hardware to boost performance and efficiency. However, accelerators have limited programmability, sacrificing the main benefit of CPU architectures and putting future innovation at risk. This class will survey nonvon Neumann generalpurpose architectures, recent work on specialized hardware accelerators, and cuttingedge research on programmable accelerators.

Prerequisites: none listed

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