Computer architecture is topic of Wednesday lecture

Elizabeth Thompson

A renowned personality in the computer industry will visit Iowa State Thursday to speak about the future of computer architecture.

Dr. James Smith, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who has more than 20 years of computer experience, will focus his lecture on the future of microprocessors.

In layman’s terms, a microprocessor is the “heart of a computer,” said Akhilesh Tyagi, assistant professor of computer science and one of the faculty members who recommended Smith’s visit.

Smith will discuss the technological drives behind the next generation of microprocessor organization, the characteristics of future microprocessors and the technology likely to dominate computer architecture research for the next several years, Tyagi said.

He will also describe how new technologies, like high-level control flow prediction, trace caching, instruction pre-processing and data value prediction, will support future microprocessors.

Smith’s lecture is a part of the distinguished lecture series sponsored by the Department of Computer Science. These lectures are annual events organized by the colloquium committee of the Department of Computer Science.

Premchand Uppuluri, graduate representative for the committee, said this will be Smith’s first time speaking for the computer science department. Uppuluri also said people from the University of Iowa, the University of Minnesota-Minneapolis, Drake University and the University of Nebraska are expected to attend.

Smith has worked in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison since 1976. In addition, he has worked with Control Data Corporation and helped develop the ZS-1, a large-scale scientific computer.

From 1989 to 1994, he headed a research team at Cray Computer Corporation, which makes supercomputers, the fastest computers available.

During that time, Smith helped develop and analyze the future of supercomputer architectures.

Supercomputers execute more instructions than a home computer and are used for scientific computing.

According to Tyagi, supercomputers can work 10,000 times faster than a personal computer.

In 1994 Smith returned to the University of Wisconsin, where he now works.

The lecture will be held Thursday at 3:30 p.m. in 101 Carver. It is free of charge and is sponsored by the Department of Computer Science and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.