IEEE International Symposium on High-Performance Computer Architecture (HPCA)

Conference positioning

IEEE International Symposium on High-Performance Computer Architecture (HPCA) is a top computer-science conference venue for high-performance architecture, accelerators, memory systems, interconnects, and datacenter hardware. It rewards an architecture paper centered on performance, efficiency, and validated design tradeoffs. Treat this skill as a fit / venue-selection / re-framing tool for conference submission strategy, not as a substitute for the current year's CFP, author kit, ethics policy, or submission portal.

Because CS conferences change deadlines, templates, page limits, review workflow, artifact rules, AI-use policy, and rebuttal formats every cycle, always verify the live official instructions before making a submission-ready recommendation. Start from the official source anchor recorded for this venue in ../../resources/conference-roster.md and ../../resources/official-source-map.md.

When to trigger

• The author names HPCA / IEEE International Symposium on High-Performance Computer Architecture as the target venue.
• A manuscript in high-performance architecture needs a conference-fit read before being formatted or submitted.
• The paper must be re-framed from journal style or arXiv style into a selective CS conference narrative.
• The author needs an evidence-gap, anonymity, artifact, rebuttal, or re-routing diagnosis for this venue.

Scope & topic fit

• Core fit: high-performance architecture, accelerators, memory systems, interconnects, and datacenter hardware.
• Best submissions make a precise contribution type visible: algorithm, theorem, system, dataset, benchmark, empirical finding, design artifact, tool, or socio-technical analysis.
• The paper should explain why the result matters to HPCA's reviewers, not just why it is interesting to the authors' lab or product context.
• Position related work against the most recent conference-cycle papers in this venue and its closest siblings; stale comparisons are a common early-review weakness.
• If the contribution is interdisciplinary, state which part is CS research and which part is domain evidence.

Venue-specific calibration

• Reviewer lens: Treat HPCA as a computer architecture venue whose reviewers expect the scope and evidence to match its own community. Do not submit a generic CS paper until the introduction names the exact subcommunity, contribution type, and proof or empirical standard.
• Contribution hook to foreground: the venue-specific contribution bar.
• Scope vocabulary to use naturally in the abstract and introduction: high-performance architecture, accelerators, memory systems, interconnects, and datacenter hardware.
• Distinctive fingerprint for reviewer calibration: high-performance, architecture, accelerators, memory, interconnects, datacenter, hardware, venue-specific, contribution, hpca-conf.
• Official anchor domain: hpca-conf.org. Quote annual rules only after opening that source and the current-year CFP/author kit.

Close-neighbor routing guardrail

• Route to HPCA when the contribution is high-performance computer architecture, microarchitecture, memory systems, accelerators, or architecture evaluation.
• Compare ISCA for flagship computer architecture, MICRO for microarchitecture depth, ASPLOS for architecture/systems/PL intersections, and SC for HPC systems.

What distinguishes this venue from its closest siblings

• What HPCA is. The IEEE International Symposium on High-Performance Computer Architecture — microarchitecture, memory systems, accelerators, and performance.
• vs ISCA. ISCA (ACM SIGARCH + IEEE TCCA) is the broadest architecture flagship; HPCA concentrates on high-performance design and is one of the "big four" (ISCA/MICRO/HPCA/ASPLOS).
• Routing. Send architecture+OS+language co-design to ASPLOS and microarchitecture-implementation work to MICRO; reserve HPCA for performance-architecture contributions.

HPCA-specific routing detail

• Prefer HPCA when the contribution is high-performance computer architecture: microarchitecture, memory hierarchy, accelerators, processor design, architectural simulation, or hardware/software co-design.
• Route broad computer-architecture work to ISCA when that flagship community/cycle fits better; route programming-language/runtime co-design to ASPLOS and full HPC systems to SC.
• HPCA evidence should include architecture model, workloads, simulator or hardware validation, performance/energy/area tradeoffs, and sensitivity analysis.

Method & evidence bar

• Build the artifact or prototype far enough that the core design can be measured under realistic workloads.
• Use appropriate baselines, sensitivity analyses, and workload characterization; systems reviewers look for hidden bottlenecks.
• Separate engineering effort from research contribution: name the abstraction, mechanism, or tradeoff.
• For HPCA, the evidence must support the venue-specific signature: an architecture paper centered on performance, efficiency, and validated design tradeoffs.
• Include limitations, negative results, compute/resource reporting, data provenance, and ethics details when they affect the claim.

Structure & house style

• Start from a systems pain point and show why existing abstractions fail.
• Use evaluation sections that answer research questions, not a tour of every benchmark run.
• Use the current official template exactly; do not guess page limits, font sizes, supplement rules, anonymity exceptions, or camera-ready requirements from old cycles.
• The introduction should answer: problem, why now, what is new, why this venue, and what evidence proves the claim.
• Put the strongest result in the main paper, not only in the appendix or supplement; reviewers should not have to reconstruct the contribution.

Official-cycle checklist

• Open the live official venue page: https://hpca-conf.org/
• Re-check the current cycle's CFP, author kit, submission system, abstract/paper deadlines, page limits, supplementary-material rules, anonymity policy, dual-submission policy, ethics policy, AI-use policy, artifact/code/data expectations, rebuttal/author-response format, and camera-ready requirements.
• Confirm the review workflow and portal: the current USENIX/ACM/IEEE author kit, artifact policy, and submission system.
• Check whether accepted papers require in-person presentation, separate registration, artifact badges, proceedings copyright, or post-acceptance release forms.
• If the live official instructions conflict with this skill, the official instructions win.

Pre-submission self-check

• One sentence states why this manuscript belongs at HPCA, using the venue's scope rather than generic "top conference" language.
• The claim is calibrated to the evidence: no broader than the datasets, proofs, systems, user studies, deployments, or threat model support.
• Related work includes the nearest current-cycle computer architecture papers and explains the technical delta.
• The paper satisfies the current official template, anonymity, ethics, artifact, and rebuttal requirements.
• The main paper is self-contained enough for reviewers to evaluate novelty and correctness without hunting through external links.

Common desk-reject triggers

• Toy implementation or microbenchmark-only evidence for a systems claim.
• No comparison to mature systems or no explanation of deployment constraints.
• Performance gains with unclear workload representativeness.
• Formatting, anonymity, dual-submission, external-link, or supplement violations under the current-year policy.
• A contribution framed for a neighboring field while giving HPCA reviewers too little technical or empirical substance.

Re-routing decision

If the paper misses HPCA's bar, compare against acm-symposium-on-operating-systems-principles / usenix-symposium-on-operating-systems-design-and-implementation / usenix-symposium-on-networked-systems-design-and-implementation / acm-sigcomm. Re-route based on contribution type, not prestige: theory to a theory venue, systems to a systems venue, application-heavy work to a domain venue, and early ideas to workshops or shorter tracks when the official CFP supports them.

Output format

[Fit] High / Medium / Low (one-line reason)
[Target] IEEE International Symposium on High-Performance Computer Architecture (HPCA)
[Contribution type] algorithm / theory / system / dataset / benchmark / empirical / design / security / other
[Main evidence gap] <single most important missing proof, experiment, study, artifact, or policy check>
[Official items to re-check] CFP / author kit / deadline / format / anonymity / ethics / AI-use / artifact / rebuttal / camera-ready
[Top rejection risk] <venue-specific risk>
[Re-route suggestion] <better-matched conference or journal if not a fit>