News
Currently, no news are available
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 | Extended: 01.08.2026 23:59 |
Due: Critical Paper Review Report v2 | |||
| Two weeks before the last day of grading (More precise deadline will be announced soon) | 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.