Steven Swanson

The Non-volatile Systems Laboratory

Hardware/software interactions, applications and architectures for non-volatile solid-state memories, ultra-efficient specialized computing architectures, architectures for data-centric computing, and software optimizations for multi-core processors.

Steven Swanson's research focuses on understanding the implications of emerging technology trends on computing systems. He leads the Non-Volatile Systems Laboratory (NVSL, where he oversees a wide range of projects related to non-volatile memories, how computer systems can leverage them to increase performance and efficiency, and other system-level issues they raise (e.g., in security). He also co-leads the GreenDroid project. The GreenDroid team is building a prototype processor that includes ultra-efficient co-processors for key portions of the Android smart phone operating system. All these projects focus on building prototype systems that must deal with hardware, software, and the boundary between them.

Steven Swanson is an associate professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of California, San Diego and the director of the Non-volatile Systems Laboratory. His research interests include the systems, architecture, security, and reliability issues surrounding non-volatile, solid-state memories. He also co-leads projects to develop low-power co-processors for irregular, mobile applications (e.g., Android Apps) and to devise software techniques for using multiple processors to speed up single-threaded computations. In previous lives he has also worked on scalable dataflow architectures, ubiquitous computing, and simultaneous multithreading. He received his PhD from the University of Washington in 2006.

CMRR Related Publications

1. "Gordon: using flash memory to build fast, power-efficient clusters for data-intensive applications." Caulfield, Adrian M., Laura M. Grupp, and S. Swanson. In ACM Sigplan Notices, Vol. 44, No. 3, pp. 217-228. ACM, Feb 2009.
2. "Safe: Fast, verifiable sanitization for ssds." S. Swanson and M.Wei. Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of California, San Diego 2010.
3. "Rethinking flash in the data center." S. Swanson and M.Wei. IEEE micro 30, No. 4, 52, 2010.
4. "NV-Heaps: making persistent objects fast and safe with next-generation, non-volatile memories." J. Coburn, A. M. Caulfield, A. Akel, L. M. Grupp, R. K. Gupta, R. Jhala, and S. Swanson. In ACM SIGARCH Computer Architecture News, Vol. 39, No. 1, pp. 105-118. ACM, 2011.
5. “Destroying Flash Memory-based Storage Devices” S. Swanson. V. 9. Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of California, San Diego, 2011.
6. “Coding for Flash Memories”.E. Yaakobi, J. Ma, A. Caulfield, L. Grupp, S. Swanson, P. H. Siegel, and J. K. Wolf. University of California, San Diego, 2011.
7. "From ARIES to MARS: Reengineering Transaction Management for Next-Generation, Solid-State Drives." J. Coburn, T. Bunker, R. K. Gupta, and S. Swanson. Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of California, San Diego, June 2012
8. “Ming II: A flexible platform for nand flash-based research.” T. Bunker, M. Wei, and S. J. Swanson. Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of California, San Diego, May 2012.
9. "QuickSAN: A Storage Area Network for Fast, Distributed, Solid State Disks."A.M. Caulfield and S. Swanson.Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of California, San Diego, February 2013.
10. “Quill: Exploiting Fast Non-volatile Memory by Transparently Bypassing the File System.” E., L. Alex, T. Mollov, and S. J. Swanson. Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of California, San Diego, January 2013.
11. "Software Considered Harmful: IO Systems for the Future of Storage," S. Swanson , A. Caulfield, Computer,. IEEE computer Society Digital Library. IEEE Computer Society, 13, June 2013

Graduate Students

Ameen Akel

Adrian Caulfield

Joel Coburn

Laura Grupp

Hung Wei Tseng

Michael Wei

Alex Eisner

Sundaram Bhaskaran

Trevor Bunker