EM2, Angstrom and Ascend: Processor Building at MIT
Srini Devadas , MIT

Abstract:

We describe three processors in various stages of design and implementation at MIT.
The Execution Migration Machine (EM2) a computation-migration-based multicore architecture that provides speedy access to on-chip distributed cache data by either migrating execution or via remote memory operations. A 121-core chip is slated for tapeout in January 2013 in 45nm technology.
Angstrom is a proposed design of a 1000-core processor that includes self-awareness in the processor, memory and network subsystems to address the energy wall problem in multicores. We have recently fabricated a "tile" of Angstrom that includes self-aware processor features.
Ascend -- Architecture for Secure Computation on Encrypted Data -- is a new processor architecture that guarantees security of encrypted data even when untrusted application and/or system software executes on the data. Ascend never exposes decrypted data to the server and also hides memory access patterns through obfuscated instruction execution. We have performed detailed simulations of an Ascend processor design to evaluate overheads of encrypted computation.