Programme research will lead to significant advances in state-of-the-art multi-core chip design and architecture, bringing about system-level performance improvements and establishing new and innovative research areas critical to future computing. Specific areas of research for the program include computer-aided design for multi-core systems, such as acceleration of design automation tools via multi-core platforms; interconnect, packaging and circuit techniques for multi-core; and low-power innovations.

"As Moore's Law scaling becomes more difficult, researchers must explore new means to insure continued technological advances in computing", stated Sankar Basu, NSF programme director. "CMOS scaling is increasingly limited by the realities imposed by physics, making architectural innovations critical to achieving increased computational performance. Multi-core-based systems promise computational performance enhancements and power reduction for both high- and low- end computing platforms."

"This partnership of government, industry and academia helps expose our universities to critical computing challenges", stated Dr. Steven Hillenius, SRC executive vice president. "Co-operative programmes with NSF help SRC to deliver value to its industrial members' capabilities while allowing universities to continue to improve their understanding of the needs of the semiconductor industry. The work benefits several sectors of the research, design and manufacturing environment."

"This new collaborative research programme addresses compelling research needs in multi-core-based systems that are of paramount importance to industry, academia and society at large", added Jeannette Wing, assistant director for Computer and Information Science and Engineering at NSF. "We welcome industry-based partnerships that offer the academic research community an opportunity to do ground-breaking, basic, long-term research inspired by problems faced by industry."