News
Mattermost Server for Communication and BrainstormingWritten on 05.05.26 (last change on 05.05.26) by Abdullah Giray Yaglikci Dear Students, Please use the Mattermost invitation link under materials (https://cms.cispa.saarland/comparch_s26/materials). Please contact your mentors on this Mattermost server, create channels for your presentations, and keep the discussion on your channel alive, so that the brainstorming… Read more Dear Students, Please use the Mattermost invitation link under materials (https://cms.cispa.saarland/comparch_s26/materials). Please contact your mentors on this Mattermost server, create channels for your presentations, and keep the discussion on your channel alive, so that the brainstorming can continue after your in-person session. Thanks, Giray |
Paper AssignmentsWritten on 01.05.26 by Abdullah Giray Yaglikci Dear Students, We have completed the paper assignments. We will host 13 presentations in total. 12 of you are assigned with their first choice and 1 is assigned with their second choice. Paper assignments, session schedule, and your assigned mentors are listed on the main page of the course… Read more Dear Students, We have completed the paper assignments. We will host 13 presentations in total. 12 of you are assigned with their first choice and 1 is assigned with their second choice. Paper assignments, session schedule, and your assigned mentors are listed on the main page of the course website. https://cms.cispa.saarland/comparch_s26/ Paper assignments are final, so you can start working on your paper review and talk. As announced earlier we will not have a meeting on May 4 and hope that you will use this time to start your preparation. Thanks, Giray |
Reminder for Your Paper PreferencesWritten on 30.04.26 by Abdullah Giray Yaglikci Dear Students, Please make sure that you submitted your paper preferences by tonight (April 30 23:59) here: https://cms.cispa.saarland/comparch_s26/exams Thanks, Giray |
Lecture Slides and Important Information (April 27, 2026)Written on 27.04.26 (last change on 27.04.26) by Abdullah Giray Yaglikci Dear Students, My slides are uploaded to the website. You can access them under materials page.
Dear Students, My slides are uploaded to the website. You can access them under materials page.
Please submit your paper preferences by April 30, 2026 23:59 here: https://cms.cispa.saarland/comparch_s26/exams Please register yourself on LSF before May 18, 2026. Please regularly check your emails as more announcements will follow regarding the schedule of your talks and Mattermost server. Thanks, Giray |
Paper ListWritten on 22.04.26 (last change on 27.04.26) by Abdullah Giray Yaglikci Dear Students, We have collected a list of preferred papers here: https://cms.cispa.saarland/comparch_s26/2/Paper_List Please choose the three papers that you would like to present the most and answer to the online test on this CMS website accordingly by Apr 30, 2026 23:59: … Read more Dear Students, We have collected a list of preferred papers here: https://cms.cispa.saarland/comparch_s26/2/Paper_List Please choose the three papers that you would like to present the most and answer to the online test on this CMS website accordingly by Apr 30, 2026 23:59: https://cms.cispa.saarland/comparch_s26/exams We will do our best to assign you with the papers you want the most. In case of conflicts, we will apply first-come-first-served policy. You can alternatively suggest Computer Architecture papers out of this list. We will evaluate your suggestions and assign accordingly. Please contact us with your preferred papers that are out of this list. Thanks, Giray |
Meeting LocationWritten on 22.04.26 by Abdullah Giray Yaglikci Dear Students, We will hold our meetings in CISPA C0 building (Stuhlsatzenhaus 5, 66123 Saarbrücken) in room 0.07. The first meeting is on April 27, 2026 (Monday) at 15:00 sharp. Thanks, Giray
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Meeting TimeWritten on 20.04.26 by Abdullah Giray Yaglikci Dear Students, Thank you for answering the poll! We fixed the lecture time as Monday 15:00 (sharp) to 16:30. We will meet weekly unless otherwise specified. The first session will be on next Monday (April 27). There will not be a meeting on May 4th. More details will… Read more Dear Students, Thank you for answering the poll! We fixed the lecture time as Monday 15:00 (sharp) to 16:30. We will meet weekly unless otherwise specified. The first session will be on next Monday (April 27). There will not be a meeting on May 4th. More details will follow. Thanks, Giray |
Meeting Time PollWritten on 17.04.26 by Abdullah Giray Yaglikci Please declare all your availability for a weekly 2-hour session, starting from the week of April 27, using this link: https://www.when2meet.com/?36170469-WX9Up Deadline: April 20 11:59AM (noon time) |
Computer Architecture (Seminar and Proseminar)
This seminar covers cutting-edge and seminal research papers, focusing on fundamental research problems in the field of computer architecture. Relevant topics include: security and reliability of microarchitecture, memory, and storage, new and emerging paradigms in computer architecture (e.g., data-centric processing), energy efficiency, hardware/software co-design, and fault tolerance.
Organization
The course portal is for both seminar and proseminar students. Each week after the kick-off meeting, a critical review presentation will take place. All students are expected to read the relevant paper(s) and engage in the discussion. Throughout the semester, each student is expected to
- present the student’s own critical review of a paper or a set of papers,
- prepare discussion questions for the critical reviews of other students,
- proactively participate the discussion and brainstorming in all sessions,
- prepare a final report containing the student’s own critical review, enriched by the online and offline discussions and brainstorming.
A seminar student is expected to prepare an additional literature survey based on one of the critical reviews of other students. The literature survey should contain a summary of the other student’s critical review, an evaluation of the review, relevant online and offline discussions, a summary of the relevant works other than the presented paper(s), and outstanding fundamental research challenges at the cutting-edge. Students may choose paper(s) from the provided list or propose alternative papers, subject to approval. Each student must submit a ranked list of preferences in decreasing order of priority. Papers will be assigned by considering students’ highest available preference, following a first-come, first-served policy based on submission time. Critical reviews should follow the structure that will be explained in the first lecture (kick-off meeting), including: a thorough summary of the paper, list of strengths, list of weaknesses, student’s takeaways from the paper, detailed discussions on weaknesses, and future research-oriented discussions.
Schedule
Paper assignments are final. Talk dates and mentor assignment can change. Please stay tuned.
| Date | Theme | Title | Speaker | Mentor | Resources |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apr 27 | Kickoff Meeting | Introduction, Logistics, and Example Presentation | Abdullah Giray Yaglikci | L1a Slides: (pptx) (pdf) L1b Slides: (pptx) (pdf) Video (YouTube) |
|
| May 4 | Preparation Week | Talk Preparation (No Meeting) | |||
| May 11 | Performance and Scaling | Runahead Execution: An Alternative to Very Large Instruction Windows for Out-of-Order Processors | Yousef Mostafa Farouk Farag | Tristan Hornetz | Paper (pdf) |
| Dark Silicon and the End of Multicore Scaling | Tigran Minasian | Lorenz Hetterich | Paper (pdf) | ||
| May 18 | Branch Prediction and Trusted Execution | Dynamic Branch Prediction with Perceptrons | Mattis Henry Hollendieck | Namhun Kim | Paper (pdf) |
| Keystone: An Open Framework for Architecting Trusted Execution Environments | Chong Zhang | Namhun Kim | Paper (pdf) | ||
| May 25 | Whit Monday | Due: Critical Paper Review Report v1 (No Meeting) | |||
| Jun 1 | Side Channels | Timing Attacks on Implementations of Diffie-Hellman, RSA, DSS, and Other Systems | Jonathan Ralph Felix Wandera | Lorenz Hetterich | Paper (pdf) |
| Spectre Attacks: Exploiting Speculative Execution | Yuvraj Singh | Eduard Ebert | Paper (pdf) | ||
| Jun 8 | Discovering CPU Microarchitectural Vulnerabilities | RISCVuzz: Discovering Architectural CPU Vulnerabilities via Differential Hardware Fuzzing | Simran Kathpalia | Lorenz Hetterich | Paper (pdf) |
| ZombieLoad: Cross-Privilege-Boundary Data Sampling | Simon Rudolf Pankraz Einzinger | Tristan Hornetz | Paper (pdf) | ||
| Jun 15 | Defenses Against Microarchitectural Side Channels | ScatterCache: Thwarting Cache Attacks via Cache Set Randomization | Yuhuai Xie | Eduard Ebert | Paper (pdf) |
| PreFence: A Fine-Grained and Scheduling-Aware Defense Against Prefetching-Based Attacks | Mahsa Rasti Najafabadi | Lorenz Hetterich | Paper (pdf) | ||
| Jun 22 | DRAM | Ambit: In-Memory Accelerator for Bulk Bitwise Operations Using Commodity DRAM Technology | Jonah Kable | Namhun Kim | Paper (pdf) |
| DRAM-based Attacks and Defenses | Another Flip in the Wall of Rowhammer Defenses | Nils Vondermühl | Eduard Ebert | Paper (pdf) | |
| Memory Performance Attacks: Denial of Memory Service in Multi-Core Systems | Mohammed Farhan Parvaes | Tristan Hornetz | Paper (pdf) | ||
| Jun 29 | ISCA Week | Critical Paper Review Report and Literature Review Preparation (No Meeting) | |||
| Jul 6 | Euro S&P Week | Critical Paper Review Report and Literature Review Preparation (No Meeting) | |||
| Jul 13 | Last Week of Classes | Due: Critical Paper Review Report v2 | |||
| Two weeks before the last day of grading | Due: Literature Review (for seminar students) | ||||
Grading
|
Proseminar Students |
Seminar Students |
|
|
Presentation of the Critical Review |
50% |
40% |
|
Active Participation in Discussion |
30% |
20% |
|
Final Report |
20% |
10% |
|
Literature Survey |
0% |
30% |
|
BONUS: Literature Survey* |
10% |
10% |
* Collecting BONUS points is possible only if the student satisfactorily delivers the presentation, participates in discussions, and delivers the final report.