The Journal of Instruction-Level Parallelism
2nd JILP Workshop on Computer Architecture Competitions (JWAC-2):

Championship Branch Prediction

in conjunction with:
ISCA-38  http://isca2011.umaine.edu/

The workshop on computer architecture competitions is a forum for holding competitions to evaluate computer architecture research topics. The second workshop is organized around a competition for branch prediction algorithms. The Championship Branch Prediction (CBP) invites contestants to submit their branch prediction code to participate in this competition. Contestants will be given a fixed storage budget to implement their best predictors on a common evaluation framework provided by the organizing committee.

Objective

The goal for this competition is to compare different branch prediction algorithms in a common framework. Predictors will be evaluated for two tracks: conditional branches and indirect branches. Predictors must be implemented within a fixed storage budget as specified in the competition rules. The simple and transparent evaluation process enables dissemination of results and techniques to the larger computer architecture community and allows independent verification of results.

 

Prizes

The championship has two tracks: A conditional branch prediction track and an indirect branch prediction track. The top performer for each track will receive a trophy commemorating his/her triumph (OR some other prize to be determined later). Top submissions will be invited to present at the workshop, when results will be announced. All source code, write-ups and performance results will be made publicly available through the JWAC-2 website. Authors of accepted workshop papers will be invited to submit full papers for possible inclusion in a special issue of the Journal of Instruction-Level Parallelism (JILP). Inclusion in the special issue will depend on the outcome of JILP's peer-review process: invited papers will be held to the same standard as regular submissions.

 

Submission Requirements

Each contestant is allowed a maximum of three submissions to the competition. Each submission should include the following:

o     Abstract: A 300-word abstract summarizing the submission. In addition, the abstract should include the competition track for the submission, author names, their affiliations, and the email address of the contact author.

o     Paper: This will be a conference-quality write-up of the branch prediction algorithm, including references to relevant related work. The paper must clearly describe how the algorithm works, how it is practical to implement, and how it conforms to the contest rules and fits within the allocated storage budget. The paper must be written in English and formatted as follows: no more than four pages, single-spaced, two-column format, minimum 10pt Times New Roman font. The paper should be submitted in .pdf format, and should be printable on letter-size paper with one-inch margins on all sides. A submission will be disqualified if the paper does not clearly describe the algorithm that corresponds to the submitted code. Papers that do not conform to the length and format rules will only be reviewed at the discretion of the program committee. For contestants with more than one submission, papers need to be sufficiently different, and not variations of the same basic idea. If papers are variations on the same idea, contestants should only submit the version that has the best performance.

o     Results: A table that gives performance of the branch prediction code for the distributed trace list (which will be verified independently by the organizing committee).

o     Branch Prediction Code: Two files (predictor.cc and predictor.h) that contain the predictor. This code must be well commented so that it can be understood and evaluated. Unreadable or insufficiently documented code will be rejected by the program committee. The code should be compiled and run on the existing infrastructure without changing any code or Makefile, and should NOT require any library code that is not part of C++. All code should be in ANSI C/C++ and POSIX conformant. We will compile the code using GCC/G++ version 3.3.3 (or higher) on a 64-bit GNU/Linux system, and if we can't compile and run the code, we can't evaluate the predictor.

Click here for details on how to submit these files.

 

 

Competition Rules

 

The competition will proceed as follows. Contestants are responsible for implementing and evaluating their algorithm in the distributed framework. Submissions will be compiled and run with the original version of the framework. Quantitatively assessing the cost/complexity of predictors is difficult. To simplify the review process, maximize transparency, and minimize the role of subjectivity in selecting a champion, CBP-3 will make no attempt to assess the cost/complexity of predictor algorithms. Instead, contestants have a storage budget of (64K + 1K) bytes, i.e., a total of 65 Kilobytes, or 66560 bytes. All predictors must be implemented within the constraints of this budget for the track of choice. Clear documentation, in the code as well as the paper writeup, must be provided to assure that this is the case. Predictors will be scored on Misprediction penalty per thousand instructions (MPPKI) only. The arithmetic mean of MPPKIs of all 40 traces will be used as the final score of a predictor.

 

 

Acceptance Criteria

 

In the interest of assembling a quality program for workshop attendees and future readers, there will be an overall selection process, of which performance ranking is the primary component. To be considered, submissions must conform to the submission requirements described above. Submissions will be selected to appear in the workshop on the basis of the performance ranking, novelty, practicality of the predictor, and overall quality of the paper and commented code. Novelty is not a strict requirement, for example, a contestant may submit his/her previously published design or make incremental enhancements to previously proposed design. In such cases, performance is a heavily weighted criterion, as is overall quality of the paper (for example, analysis of new results on the common framework, etc.).

 

Description of the Simulation Infrastructure

 

CBP3 Kit: Download and Directions (Available after February 15, 2011)

 

Important Dates

 

Competition formally announced:

February 14, 2011

Evaluation framework available:

February 15, 2011

Submissions due:

April 15, 2011

Acceptance notification:

April 29, 2011

Final code submission:

May 6, 2011

Final version due:

May 20, 2011

Results announced:

at workshop (June 4, 2011)

 

Workshop Program

 

Steering Committee

Alaa R. Alameldeen, Intel

Eric Rotenberg, NC State

 

 

 

 

Organizing Committee

Alaa R. Alameldeen, Intel

Hongliang Gao, Intel (Chair)

Chris Wilkerson, Intel

 

 

 

 

Program Chair

Trevor Mudge, University of Michigan

 

 

 

Program Committee

Alaa Alameldeen, Intel

Hongliang Gao, Intel

Daniel Jimenez, UT-San Antonio

Yale Patt, Texas

Andre Seznec, INRIA

Lucian Vintan, University of Sibiu

Chris Wilkerson, Intel

 

Affiliated Logos

 

 

 

                                                  JILP