HiPEAC has been set up to address the design and implementation of commodity computing devices in the ten year horizon, covering the processor design, the optimizing compiler infrastructure and the evaluation of upcoming applications made possible by the increased computing power of future devices.

Although this "network of excellence" is primarily academic it includes engineers from ACE Associated Computer Experts BV, ARM Holdings plc, STMicroelectronics NV, NXP BV, Virtutech Inc., Xyratex Ltd. and IBM and Intel in Israel on its list of participants.

After a process of brainstorming and discussion, a set of the leading academics within the network has produced the first HiPEAC research roadmap. In total 55 key challenges organized under 10 themes are listed in this roadmap. The list of challenges can serve as a source of reference for researchers and help companies building their own R&D roadmap, the authors said.

The themes include single and multicore architectures, interconnection, programming models and tools, compilation, run-time systems, benchmarking, simulation and system modeling, reconfiguration, and real-time operation.

"The exponential improvement of application performance across computer generations will come to an end if we do not succeed in adapting our applications to the parallel resources of future computer systems," the roadmap concludes.

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