Traditional computing is heading increasingly into the memory wall, the power wall, the instruction-level-parallelism wall, and other performance limiters. This situation presents new opportunities for non-traditional computer architectures—neuromorphic, quantum, in-memory, and other approaches not based on the von Neumann architecture—to deliver the perpetually needed improvements in execution speed. For this special section of TPDS, we will be accumulating recent community research in these areas, with a specific focus on parallel and distributed computing architectures, into a curated selection of articles.
About TPDS special sections
TPDS has recently started a new initiative called “special sections.” Compared with regular submissions to TPDS, special sections have some differences: (1) submissions are focused on special topics of interest (similar to special issues); (2) special sections have fixed deadlines for submission and notifications; and (3) special sections have a standing committee of reviewers similar to conferences. This is the second such special section that we are planning.
Timeline
The timeline for the submission and review process is as follows. All deadlines are midnight anywhere on Earth.
Round 1:
● Submission deadline: 1 September 2020 (no extensions)
● First-round review notification: 27 October 2020 (5 weeks for reviews)
● Notification would be one of Accept, Reject, Major Revisions, or Minor Revisions
Round 2a (only for papers that get a minor revision in Round 1):
● Second-round submission deadline: 10 November 2020 (2 weeks for re-submission)
● Second-round review notification: 1 December 2020 (3 weeks for reviews)
● Notification would be one of Accept or Reject.
Round 2b (only for papers that get a major revision in Round 1):
● Second-round submission deadline: 24 November 2020 (4 weeks for re-submission)
● Second-round review notification: 29 December 2020 (4 weeks for reviews)
● Notification would be one of Accept, Reject, or Minor Revisions.
Round 3 (only for papers that got a minor revision in Round 2b):
● Third-round submission deadline: 8 February 2021 (2 weeks for re-submission)
● Third-round review notification: 22 February 2021 (2 weeks for reviews)
● Notification would be one of Accept or Reject.
Topics of interest
The special section is dedicated to novel, emerging, and promising parallel and distributed computing techniques for non-von Neumann technologies. This includes all manner of radical new architectures, but not conventional accelerators, such as GPUs, FPGAs, and SIMD systems or ordinary CPUs embedded in various devices. Articles about software simulations and foundational models of such systems are welcome, but novel programming models designed for conventional hardware are likely to be deemed out of scope. Topics of interest include but are not limited to:
- Neuromorphic computing
- Biologically-inspired computing
- Quantum computing
- Annealing-based computing, both quantum and classical
- Memristor- and other emerging-device-based computing
- Approximate, probabilistic, and inexact computing
- In-memory processing and memory-based computing
- Analog computing
- Reversible computing
- DNA computing
- Thermodynamic computing
- Optical computing
- Chemical computing and chemical reaction networks
- Cellular computing
- Collision-based computing
Submission instructions
Submissions to the special section will be received as TPDS regular papers—survey and comment-style papers are not allowed. Please check the submission instructions, including page limit, manuscript format, and submission guidance, on the TPDS Author Information page. Please note that review versions of the papers are limited to 12 pages, and overlength page charges are only for the final versions of the papers. Submissions are not double blind. Authors can disclose their names, and they can freely cite their previous work without referring to it in a third-party fashion.
Similar to regular TPDS papers, you can extend previous conference papers and submit them to this special section. However, there must be a novel contribution from the work submitted to the special section. Authors should refer to the Extensions of Prior Papers section of the TPDS Author Information page for details and examples of acceptable and unacceptable forms of extensions to prior publications. Note that some of the other information on that page applies only to general TPDS submissions, not to manuscripts submitted to this special section.
Authors can submit papers until the deadline through ScholarOne. Once you start the submission process, in Step 1 of the process, you’ll be asked to pick a “Type” for the paper. Please pick “SS for Parallel and Distributed Computing Techniques for NvNT.”
Editors
- Scott Pakin (Los Alamos National Laboratory)
- Christof Teuscher (Portland State University)
- Catherine Schuman (Oak Ridge National Laboratory)
Review Committee
- Gert Cauwenberghs, University of California San Diego
- Joseph S. Friedman, University of Texas at Dallas
- Dhireesha Kudithipudi , University of Texas at San Antonio
- Hai Li, Duke University
- Joe Lizier, The University of Sydney
- Ojas Parekh, Sandia National Laboratories
- Steven P. Reinhardt, Quantum Computing, Inc.
- Kentaro Sano, RIKEN
- Jae-sun Seo, Arizona State University
- William Severa, Sandia National Laboratories
- Susanne Stepney, University of York
