The ACM Special Interest Group on Computer Architecture (SIGARCH) has presented its 2010 Maurice Wilkes Award to Professor Andreas Moshovos (ECE) for his contributions to the development of memory-dependence prediction. This technique, used by high-performance microprocessors that execute memory-access operations, provides many applications in boosting memory-system performance and reducing processor-design complexity. The award, which carries a prize of $2,500, was presented at the International Symposium on Computer Architecture (ISCA) in St. Malo, France, in June.
Professor Moshovos leads the University of Toronto’s AENAO research group, which is developing performance- and power-related technologies for single- and multi-core processors. His contributions to memory-dependence prediction represent a novel solution to the decades-old problem of memory aliasing in which a data location in memory can be accessed through different symbolic names in the program. As a result, aliasing makes it particularly difficult to understand, analyze and optimize programs.
“We are extremely proud that the Association for Computing Machinery has recognized Professor Moshovos’s outstanding contributions to memory-dependence prediction,” said Cristina Amon, Dean, Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering. “This honour confirms the global impact of the research being conducted at the Faculty and the outstanding reputation our professors have earned.”
As a professor at Northwestern University in Illinois, Professor Moshovos received a CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation in 2000. He also won the IBM Faculty Partnership awards in 2008 and 2009, and was selected by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) for Micro Top Pick paper awards in 2005 and 2010. With colleagues from the University of Toronto, he was granted a Semiconductor Research Corporation Inventor Recognition Award. Professor Moshovos graduated from the University of Heraklion, Greece with an undergraduate degree and an M.S., and was awarded a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The Maurice Wilkes Award, the only mid-career award offered by ACM SIGARCH, is given annually for an outstanding contribution to computer architecture made by an individual in a computer-related profession for 20 years or less. It is named in honor of Maurice Wilkes, a recipient of the ACM A.M. Turing Award in 1967, who is best known as the builder and designer of the Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator (EDSAC), the first computer with an internally stored program.
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