Postdoctoral position in computer architecture: Using broad contextual information for better branch prediction

Are you excited to work on new concepts in processor branch prediction with the support of friendly, knowledgeable, and passionate colleagues? Are you looking for an international research environment that values sustainable and collegial work together with career mentorship? Are you looking to drive research forward based on your own insights and enthusiasm with help from those around you? If so, read further for an amazing opportunity.

The Department of Information Technology holds a leading position in both research and education at all levels. We are currently Uppsala University's third largest department, have around 350 employees, including 120 teachers and 120 PhD students. Approximately 5,000 undergraduate students take one or more courses at the department each year. You can find more information about us on the Department of Information Technology website.

The Uppsala Architecture Research Group consists of four faculty and eight PhD/postdocs with experience on nearly every aspect of architecture. We regularly publish in the top venues and collaboration with industrial and academic researchers across the world.

Duties
Research, publication, advising, and possibly teaching in computer architecture. 

Requirements
PhD degree in Computer Science or Compute Engineering or a foreign degree equivalent to a PhD degree in Computer Science or Compute Engineering. The degree needs to be obtained by the time of the decision of employment. Those who have obtained a PhD degree three years prior to the application deadline are primarily considered for the employment. The starting point of the three-year frame period is the application deadline. Due to special circumstances, the degree may have been obtained earlier. The three-year period can be extended due to circumstances such as sick leave, parental leave, duties in labour unions, etc.

Excellent skills in spoken and written English are required. The candidate must clearly document a high degree of self-motivation in the application. In addition, the applicant must be able to work well in a diverse group, comfortable giving and receiving constructive criticism, and have strong abilities for critical thinking and structured work. These competencies are as important as the technical qualifications as they are essential for ensuring a constructive and collaborative work environment.

Research topic
Branch prediction is increasing in importance as processors have more in-flight instructions. Our hypothesis is that we can produce fundamentally better predictions by merging different prediction contexts rather than competing between different predictor outcomes. The reason to believe in this hypothesis is that the different contexts used by different predictors today are not independent: for example, loops and statistically predicted branches are intermixed and affect each other. Combining contextual information before finding patterns is fundamentally different from combining the final predictions after each predictor finds its own context-specific pattern. If we can combine different types of contextual information (e.g., loops and statistical counts and histories), we believe we can create a more sophisticated “meta-context” that allows us to recognize patterns from the combined context information, leading to better predictions. The flip side is that it may be correspondingly harder to recognize the right patterns, particularly at runtime. This project contains two parts: looking at the underlying potential by studying application behavior and looking at the tradeoffs to make a practical design. 

Additional qualifications
Candidates should have expertise in computer architecture, ideally in branch prediction or out-of-order execution, and some experience with machine learning. Experience with training/optimizing/interpreting attention mechanisms in neural networks is a plus, but this can be learned as part of the project as well. 

Application

• A cover letter (max 2 pages), in English, briefly describing your motivation for applying for this position and the earliest possible employment date. The cover letter should include the heading Suitability for this position, containing a self-assessment on why you would be the right candidate for this position;
• A curriculum vitae (CV).
• Transcript of PhD degree, including courses taken during PhD studies, or a draft of the thesis if the degree is not yet completed.
• A list of publications.
• A research statement describing your past and current research (max 1 page) and a proposal for future activities (max 1 page).
• Two references with contact information (names, emails and telephone number) and up to two letters of recommendation. 

About the employment
The employment is a temporary position of three years according to central collective agreement.  Full time position. Starting date 1 September 2025 or as agreed. Placement: Uppsala.

For further information about the position, please contact: Professor David Black-Schaffer, +46 768242017, david.black-schaffer@it.uu.se.

Please submit your application by 2 May 2025, UFV-PA 2025/626.

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