New cost/performance goals are being defined for microprocessors in light of the growing importance of multimedia applications (e.g. games, virtual reality). Moreover, microprocessors are being used in new equipment, other than "pure computers", and this trend is expected to gain momentum.

This seminar will address issues related to the design of microprocessors with an emphasis on improved multimedia support. Among the issues related to this topic are:

1. Extension of instruction sets to take advantage of on-chip parallelism (e.g. SIMD instructions and instruction level parallelism).
2. Methodologies and mechanisms for improving memory-processor bandwidth.
3. Scheduling mechanisms for controlling multiple functional units and support of out-of-order execution.
4. Fast and precise interrupt control.
5. ALU and FPU design (e.g. multi-precision support, packed formats, forwarding, and fused operations).