Michael O'Boyle


Professor
PhD, University of Manchester, 1992
Email: mob at inf dot ed dot ac dot uk
Phone: 0131 650 5117

NEW September 2014: 2 PhD Positions Available

2 CASE PhD Positions in conjunction with ARM in Compiler based Parallelisation and Simulation. Contact me for informal enquiries.

Director of ARM Research Centre of Excellence
General Chair PLDI 2014

Research Interests

The primary research question I am interested in is: how can compiler technology best exploit the potential of high performance architectures? Recently we have developed innovative approaches to this problem using machine learning where it outperforms hand designed approaches. I am interested in their interaction with architecture and in particular compiler/architecture co-design . My research interests include:

  • Adaptive compilation. Compilers are unable to keep up with the sustained evolution of computer architecture. I am working on techniques which allow the compiler to learn about the underlying parallel architecture by exploring a transformation based optimisation space.
  • Machine learning based Optimisation. I'm interested in how predictive modelling and feature generation can be used to automate the design of compilers
  • Developing these ideas in MilePost
  • Compiler/Architecure co-design space exploration. We are investigating the use of predictive models to predict the best compiler optimisations for any architecture
  • Auto-parallelising compilers. This is a tough problem. I am currently investigating the use of dynamic, probabilistic analysis in conjunction with machine learning to develop a new approach that gives future proof scalable code for multi-cores.ss
  • Heterogeneous and GPGPU multi-core platforms. I am interested in how we can use smart compiler analysis and adaptation to exploit the potential of such architectures.
  • Very High level programming languages. I am interested in how languages such as Matlab, which provide great expressive power may be implemented on mult-cores

    • I am a member of the Compiler and Architecture Design Group.
    Steering Committee and Partner of HiPEAC Network of Excellence

    Papers from 1997 onwards can be found on the CArD publications page. Earlier papers 1992-1996 can be found here

    A brief biography

    Students and Postdocs

  • Alberto Magni ARM Centre of Excellence. OpenCL compilation
  • Erik Tomusk ARM Centre of Excellence. Design space exploration
  • Yuan Wen ARM Centre of Excellence. Heterogeneous task scheduling
  • Murai Emani . Machine learning based adaptive scheduling
  • Kiran Chandramohan . Compiling for heterogeneous multicores
  • Chris Margiolas . Runtime systems for heterogeneous platforms
  • Bruno Bodin Pamela. Parallel compilation and computer vision
  • Govind Sreekar Shenoy Pamela. Hardware design space exploration and computer vision

    • Former Students and Postdocs

  • Tim Jones Royal Academy of Engineering / EPSRC Research Fellow. Now at U. Cambridge รถ
  • Christophe Dubach Royal Academy of Engineering / EPSRC Research Fellow . Now lecturer at U. Edinburgh
  • Hugh Leather Royal Academy of Engineering / EPSRC Research Fellow. Now lecturer at U.Edinburgh
  • Zheng Wang PhD student. Mow lecturer at U. Lancaster
  • Dominik Grewe PhD student. Now at Google London.

    • Prospective PhD Students

    I am interested in supervising PhD students in any of the above research areas. For further details, please use the contact information at the top of this page