Ugrads are invited to Dept talks, you can get on the list to hear about all of them, but this is the distinguished lecture series, so you may want to take note of this one in particular.
Just be aware that if you do NOT attend the talk, we don’t want to see you at the reception afterwards, that’s just grounds for ticking off your advising staff… so please be considerate as always.
UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON
Computer Science and Engineering
*DISTINGUISHED LECTURE*
SPEAKER: Bob Colwell, Formerly DARPA and Intel
TITLE: Our Computer Systems Are Not Good Enough
DATE: Thursday, November 19, 2015
TIME: 3:30pm
PLACE: EEB-105
HOST: Luis Ceze
ABSTRACT:
We have all been following the dictum of Moore’s Law for longer than most
engineers have been alive. Our focus on functionality, performance, and
economics has yielded remarkable systems, from today’s smartphones to
supercomputers and internet servers, to engine controllers, anti-lock
brakes, airbags, and navigation systems in our vehicles.
But software is notoriously buggy, and hardware isn’t defect-free, either.
Worse, we seem to only take security into account when some hacker
perpetrates yet another outrage. The pending end of Moore’s Law will
greatly diminish the historical demand to replace systems every few years,
which will put new pressure on system aging effects. Our military is using
these same commercial systems, because they are the highest performance,
most economical solutions, but this means that they, too, are now exposed
to the same problems. By one estimate, more than half of automotive
recalls are due to software defects. And here come self-driving cars,
which could potentially have ALL of these threat axes simultaneously.
Performance and efficiency enable new applications, and in the past, the
computer design community could simply stop when those targets were within
reach. In this talk, I will argue that we cannot get away with that any
longer, and need to turn our attention to areas of system design that are
not good enough for how those systems will be used in the near future.
I’ll also discuss some ideas on how to accomplish this without incurring
additional development or product costs.
Bio:
Bob Colwell was Director of DARPA’s Microsystems Technology Office from
2012 – 2014. Previously, he was Intel’s chief IA32 (Pentium)
microprocessor architect from 1992-2000. He was named the Eckert-Mauchly
award winner for 2005. Elected to the National Academy of Engineering in
2006 “for contributions to turning novel computer architecture concepts
into viable, cutting-edge commercial processors”, he is also a member of
the American Academy of Arts and Science. He was named an Intel Fellow in
1996, and an IEEE Fellow in 2006. Colwell was a CPU architect at VLIW
mini-supercomputer pioneer Multiflow Computer, a hardware design engineer
at workstation vendor Perq Systems, and a member of technical staff at
Bell Labs. He has published many technical papers and journal articles, is
inventor or co-inventor on 40 patents, and has participated in numerous
panel sessions and invited talks. He is the Perspectives editor for IEEE
Computer Magazine, wrote the At Random column 2002-2005, and is author of
The Pentium Chronicles. He is currently an independent consultant. Colwell
holds the BSEE degree from the University of Pittsburgh, and the MSEE and
PhD from Carnegie Mellon University.
Reception to take place in the Atrium, Paul G Allen Center for Computer
Science & Engineering *after* the talk.
*NOTE* This lecture will be broadcast live via the Internet. See
http://www.cs.washington.edu/
Email: talk-info@cs.washington.edu
Info: http://www.cs.washington.edu/
(206) 543-1695
The University of Washington is committed to providing access, equal
opportunity and reasonable accomodation in its services, programs,
activities, education and employment for individuals with disabilities.
To request disability accommodation, contact the Disability Services
Office at least ten days in advance of the event at: (206) 543-6450/V,
(206) 543-6452/TTY, (206) 685-7264 (FAX), or email at
dso@u.washington.edu.