Workshop Report: Future Directions in Computer Architecture

Designers must strive for a top-down, application-driven approach to digital system design. And new methods are needed for analytically exploring design tradeoffs in the context of changing technology and the multitude of highly concurrent systems technology will make possible. These were among the principal themes to arise from the Workshop on Future Directions in Computer Architecture, held November 16-17, 1977, at the University of Texas at Austin. Sponsored by the Special Interest Group on Computer Architecture of the ACM, the Technical Committee on Computer Architecture of the IEEE Computer Society, and The University of Texas at Austin with the support of the National Science Foundation, the meeting was aimed at identifying nearterm trends in computer architecture research and development. Following opening addresses by Zilog President Frederico Faggin and ACM President Herb Grosch, the workshop divided into seven sequential sessions (Table 1).