What Does the Post-Moore Era Mean for Research Software Engineering?

Abstract

We are entering the post-Moore era where we no longer enjoy the free ride of the performance growth from simply shrinking the transistor features. However, this does not necessarily mean that we are entering a dark era of computing. On the contrary, sustaining the performance growth of computing in the post-Moore era itself is cutting-edge research. Concretely, heterogeneity and hardware specialization are becoming promising approaches in hardware designs. However, these are paradigm shifts in computer architecture. So what does the post-Moore era mean for research software engineering? This position paper addresses such a question by summarizing possible challenges and opportunities for research software engineering in the post-Moore era. We then briefly discuss what is missing and how we prepare to tackle such challenges and exploit opportunities for the future of computing.