ACADEMIA

Volodymyr Kindratenko, a senior research scientist at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), is a guest editor for the March issue of IEEE Computer, which focuses on high-performance reconfigurable computing. High-performance reconfigurable computers (HPRCs), such as hybrid systems combining conventional processors with field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), have the potential to improve performance and power while reducing size and cost of computational systems. However, performance gains remain elusive for many scientific applications, and programming reconfigurable supercomputers is not yet straightforward. The guest-edited issue of Computer is intended to shed light on the current state of HPRC, including recent progress and remaining challenges. Articles appearing in the issue include: * "Trident: From High-Level Language to Hardware Circuitry" * "V-Force: An Extensible Framework for Reconfigurable Computing" * "Achieving High Performance with FPGA-Based Computing" * "Sparse Matrix Computations on Reconfigurable Hardware" * "Using FPGA Devices to Accelerate Biomolecular Simulations" The issues other guest editors are Duncan Buell, a professor in the College of Engineering and Information Technology at the University of South Carolina, Columbia; Tarek El-Ghazawi, a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at The George Washington University; and Kris Gaj, George Mason University.