IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Microarchitecture^®

Dear members of the TCuARCH Community,

It is with great pleasure that I send you the October 2018 TCuARCH community update. As you can see below, we have been making exciting progress in MICRO conference governing bylaws, MICRO-2017 Survey data, transparency, re-organizing MICRO Test-of-Time Award Committee, and MICRO-2018 organization.

We all agree that all conferences in the computer architecture community can do better in diversity, inclusiveness and data transparency. I believe that the MICRO SC, SigMICRO, and TCuARCH are approaching this important challenge in a thoughtful way, carefully thinking through any unintended consequences of our moves. Looking at the progress reported below (and that reported in the previous updates), I personally believe that MICRO is already comparable or better than its peer conferences in diversity and transparency.

1. MICRO Conference Bylaws. I am excited to report that ACM SIGMICRO and IEEE TCuARCH have finished our joint review/revision process with the MICRO SC and voted unanimously to endorse MICRO Bylaws v1.1. You can find the news release at www.microarch.org. The URL for the Bylaws document is https://www.microarch.org/bylaws.html.
   
   This is a major step forward for the MICRO community. The MICRO Bylaws V1.1 clearly defines the election process and term limits for SC members as well as the process for selecting the annual chairs. More importantly, it prominently enunciates the importance of inclusiveness, diversity, and transparency in the selection and operation of all aspects of the conference.
   
   We all wished that we could have reached this milestone much earlier, we also realized that we needed to be thorough and patient in our endeavor for the good of the community.
2. MICRO-2017 Survey. As I mentioned in the May TCuARCH update, the entire MICRO-2017 survey data set has been organized, plotted, and delivered to MICRO SC, SigMICRO, and TCuARCH for review. Several action items have been formulated based on the numerical data. The text response data is currently being analyzed by an independent evaluation expert, Prof. Lizanne DeStefano of Georgia Tech. We expect to publish the final report from Prof. DeStefano the week before MICRO-2018.
3. Transparency. The MICRO SC co-chairs have been collaborating with me to assemble a comprehensive data set about MICRO SC, GCs, PCs, and PC members. This effort is supported by a postdoctoral researcher at the IBM-Illinois Cognitive Computing Systems Research Center (C3SR) whose research involves the ingestion and analysis of unstructured natural language data. These data will be made available at the MICRO website for transparency. The availability of such comprehensive data set will help address the problem of conclusions made based on incomplete data. I plan to present the data at MICRO-2018 and perhaps in the IEEE MICRO Magazine.
4. Test-of-Time (ToT) Award Committee. Pradip Bose and the MICRO SC have re-formed the Micro ToT Award Committee. Its composition is governed by a concrete set of rules, which are currently based on IEEE TCCA's rules on HPCA Test of Time Award Committee Composition. The draft guidelines for future use are posted on the microarch.org website and are subject to final approval by the MICRO SC.
5. MICRO-2018. As of October 1, the number of registrations for the main conference has reached 569! If we add workshop-only registrations, we will have over 600 attendees. We are on track to have another exciting year for MICRO.
6. TCuARCH 2018 Budget. With the new IEEE TC budget model, we now have a better process for sponsoring student travel grants for all conferences. This will especially help CGO, which historically have had difficulties due to the fact that CGO takes place at the beginning of the year.
7. Sexual Misconduct. Starting with MICRO-2018, we are publishing conference code of conduct and anti-harassment and anti-discrimination policies on the top page of the conference website.
   
   All ACM SIGMICRO, IEEE TCuARCH, and MICRO SC members will be paying attention to any misconducts during the conference. We will work with the IEEE Ethics and Member Conduct committee and staff to investigate and take action on any such offense. We cannot tolerate any sexual misconduct in our conferences.