NSF expedition on variability-aware software: Recent results and contributions

Abstract

In this paper we summarize recent results and contributions from the NSF Expedition on Variability-Aware Software, a five year, multi-university effort to tackle the problem of hardware variations and its implications and opportunities in software. The Expedition has made contributions in characterization and online monitoring of variations (particularly in microprocessors and flash memories), proposed new coding techniques for variability-tolerant storage, provided tools and platforms for the development of variability-aware software, and created new runtime support systems for variability-aware task-scheduling and execution.