March 12 — Evaluating, benchmarking and classifying embedded systems are challenging tasks. By definition, an embedded system is application specific. Furthermore, an embedded system is designed to fit within certain constraints dictated by their target application areas. Aspects such as power consumption, real time awareness, reliability, accuracy of the computation, cost, device and physical size are all metrics under which an embedded system can be classified and that have a direct influence on the overall system performance.

All these contrasting metrics define how well an embedded system can address its target application. An additional challenge derives from the fact that modern embedded systems are composed of a multitude of heterogeneous processing elements and components. They include general-purpose processors, digital signal processors, graphic processors, application specific accelerators, reconfigurable logic and more. These components can be either off-the-shelf or custom designed. Embedded systems often present disparate types of memory hierarchies. Also the software toolchain, which includes compilers, synthesizers and optimization tools, may have significant impacts on the metrics.

This workshop is related to a new DARPA initiative in this arena called SEAK (Suite of Embedded Applications and Kernels), whose goal is to define a new, open suite of benchmarks, together with a novel methodology to evaluate in terms of performance and power end-to-end embedded systems for DOD’s application areas.

The SEAK workshop solicits short abstracts for a poster session, open to academia and industry. Areas of particular interest for this assembly are research topics that identify and analyze novel ideas, rather than providing incremental advances, on the following themes:

• Benchmark and micro-benchmark creation, analysis, and evaluation issues
• Characterization of relevant workloads for embedded systems
• Modeling of application and system behavior
• Tools for analyzing power and energy with different granularities and scope from hardware (e.g. component, core, system) or software views (e.g. threads, tasks, processes, etc) or both (end-to-end systems)
• Definition, identification of metrics that determine the suitability of an embedded system for its target applications, and their collection methodologies
• Characterization of current state-of-the art embedded systems in terms of power and performance

Important Dates

• Abstract submission: 31 March 2014
• Notification of Acceptance:  8 April 2014
• Workshop: 1 June 2014

Abstract Submission Guidelines

Submission site: https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=seak2014

All submissions should be maximum 2 pages in double-column, single-spaced letter format, using 10-point size fonts, with at least one-inch margins on each side, including references. The submission can also include a draft of the poster as an additional page.

Authors of accepted abstracts will be given a poster board for presenting their work at the workshop.

Organizers

• Adolfy Hoisie, PNNL, Richland, WA, USA, [email protected]
• Darren Kerbyson, PNNL, Richland, WA, USA, [email protected]
• Joseph Cross, DARPA, Arlington, VA, [email protected]

Program Chair

• Antonino Tumeo, PNNL, Richland, WA, USA, [email protected]

Program Committee

• Kevin Barker, PNNL, Richland, WA, USA, [email protected]
• Roberto Gioiosa, PNNL, Richland, WA, USA, [email protected]
• Joseph Manzano, PNNL, Richland, WA, USA, [email protected]
• Andres Marquez, PNNL, Richland, WA, USA, [email protected]
• Shuaiwen Song, PNNL, Richland, WA, USA, [email protected]
• Nathan Tallent, PNNL, Richland, WA, USA, [email protected]
• Other members TBD

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Source: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory