Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Contracts Management Office (CMO), 3701 N. Fairfax Dr., Arlington VA 22203-1714

A -- ADAPTIVE COMPUTING SYSTEMS, EMBEDDED HIGH PERFORMANCE COMPUTING, AND ULTRASCALE COMPUTING SOL BAA97-06 DUE 020797 POC Dr. Jose L. Munoz, DARPA/ITO, FAX: (703) 522-7161. The DARPA Computing and Networking Division of the Information Technology Office supports research in the advanced information technologies that will underpin future Defense systems. This Computing and Networking BAA covers selected research topics in the areas of: Adaptive Computing Systems, Embedded High Performance Computing (HPC), Microsystems Design, and Ultrascale Computing. ADAPTIVE COMPUTING SYSTEMS: Adaptive Computing Systems (ACS) solicits research to define, create and accelerate the adoption of new classes of computing and communication systems comprised of configurable hardware components supporting system-level adaptation for optimum performance across rapidly evolving computational, environmental, and system health constraints. Unlike the microprogramming approaches of a decade ago, which supported low-level software manipulation of a fixed hardware architecture, the intent of adaptive computing systems is to allow the software to reach through to a reconfigurable hardware layer and directly optimize its underlying architecture while providing user-friendly programming abstractions. The adaptive computing program supports the notion of composable systems by creating the enabling hardware, architecture, languages, compilers and runtime environments allowing the hardware/software boundary to be fluidly redefined, perhaps during execution. Application domains of interest to Defense include automatic target recognition, synthetic aperture radar, signal and image processing, information security, mission planning, adaptive filtering, channel coding, adaptive waveforms, and multimedia data. Research will be considered across a broad range of technologies including configurable hardware components, component and system architectures, software development and runtime environments, convincing Defense application demonstrations, and new mathematical techniques and algorithmic formulations optimized for adaptive computing systems. Proposals must target and quantify revolutionary advances in one or more critical parameters that directly impact system-level application performance. Such parameters include: runtime compilation or reconfiguration time, power consumed, bandwidth, latency, mapping efficiency, throughput, or algorithm development/mapping time. EMBEDDABLE SYSTEMS: Embeddable system solutions typically result in heterogeneous systems in order to satisfy constraints such as size, weight, performance, power, and cost in the context of realtime applications. These systems are composed of collections of heterogeneous resources including: processors, communication fabrics, I/O channels, storage/memory media and operating systems. These resources are utilized by a software architecture that itself typically consists of a heterogeneous set of languages, libraries, middleware and programming paradigms. All of these components must be orchestrated in a manner to meet the functional and realtime demands of the application in response to requirements. To reduce the cost of managing and developing these complex systems, the Embeddable Systems program solicits research in the areas of: (a) debugging and performance tuning of realtime heterogeneous systems, (b) dynamic resource allocation and algorithm/software/hardware mapping and (c) techniques for efficient use of memory in small memory systems. MICROSYSTEMS DESIGN: Factors driving change in the microsystems design process are: the increasing complexity of microsystems in industrial and Defense applications, increasing demands on process control for microsystems fabrication as device miniaturization continues, rapid turn-around-time requirements for both design and fabrication, prohibitive costs for new fabrication facilities, and the economic pressures of a competitive worldwide market. To explore the nature of this change, DARPA is soliciting proposals for quick feasibility demonstrations integrating individual tools and capabilities achieved to date into seamless globally distributed microsystems design environments. Emphasis will be on rapid access to research level tools, facilitation of very large (multi-million gate) designs without microelectronics experience and feasibility of rapid customization of COTS components for military applications. Successful proposals will incorporate design tools into demonstrations and involve the designer community in feasibility exercises to fully explore the issues and potential impact surrounding a globally distributed design environment. ULTRASCALE COMPUTING: Defense applications continue to define the limits of use for computing assets, furthermore, Defense needs evolve as computing assets grow so as to require ever greater speed, storage density, lower power and cost, as well as increased functionality. Even foreseeable extrapolations of current technologies will fall short of the orders-of-magnitude improvement needed to satisfy some familiar battlefield scenarios. Proposals are sought in two specific areas: 1) New Models of Computation: create advanced parallel and high speed architectures, invent new techniques for eliciting desired emergent behavior from very large numbers of processors, and demonstrate the ability to utilize the entangled quantum mechanical states of matter to achieve advanced computing capabilities. 2) New Physical Mechanisms: explore and exploit molecular, neural and bio-molecular mechanisms for storage and processing of information, develop and install control mechanisms into one-celled organisms to facilitate their use as computing elements or as the nanofactories for inorganic ultrascale computing hardware, and develop in-vitro neuronal cellular growth techniques to demonstrate direct interfacing of silicon electronics with biological networks. PROGRAM SCOPE: Proposed research should investigate innovative approaches and techniques that lead to or enable revolutionary advances in the state-of-the-art. Research should result in prototype hardware and software demonstrating integrated concepts and approaches on Defense-relevant applications. Specifically excluded is research which primarily results in evolutionary improvement to the existing state of practice or focuses on a specific system or hardware solution. Integrated solution sets embodying significant technological advances are strongly encouraged over narrowly defined research endeavors. Partnering arrangements among academic, industrial, and non-profit research organizations are strongly encouraged. GENERAL INFORMATION: In order to minimize unnecessary effort in proposal preparation and review, proposers are strongly encouraged to submit brief proposal abstracts in advance of full proposals. An original and seven copies of the proposal abstract must be submitted to DARPA/ITO, ATTN: BAA 97-06, 3701 North Fairfax Drive, Arlington, VA 22203-1714, on or before 4:00 PM (ET), Friday, December 6, 1996, to guarantee review. Upon review of the proposal abstracts, DARPA will provide offerors with an indication of the relevance and acceptability of the technical ideas proposed. Proposers must submit an original and seven copies of full proposals by 4:00 PM (ET), Friday, February 7, 1997, in order to be considered. Proposers must obtain a pamphlet, BAA 97-06 Proposer Information, which provides further information on the areas of interest, submission, evaluation, funding processes, proposal abstracts, and full proposal formats. This pamphlet may be obtained by fax, electronic mail, or mail request to the administrative contact address given below, as well as at URL address http://www.ito.darpa.mil/Solicitations.html. Proposals not meeting the format described in the pamphlet may not be reviewed. This Commerce Business Daily notice, in conjunction with the pamphlet BAA 97-06 Proposer Information, constitutes the total BAA. No additional information is available, nor will a formal RFP or other solicitation regarding this announcement be issued. Requests for same will be disregarded. The Government reserves the right to select for award all, some, or none of the proposals received. All responsible sources capable of satisfying the Government's needs may submit a proposal which shall be considered by DARPA. Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) and Minority Institutions (MI) are encouraged to submit proposals and join others in submitting proposals. However, no portion of this BAA will be set aside for HBCU and MI participation due to the impracticality of reserving discrete or severable areas of information security research for exclusive competition among these entities. Evaluation of proposals will be accomplished through a scientific review of each proposal using the following criteria, which are listed in descending order of relative importance: (1) overall scientific and technical merit, (2) potential contribution and relevance to DARPA mission, (3) offeror's capabilities and related experience, (4) plans and capability to accomplish technology transition, and (5) cost realism. All administrative correspondence and questions on this solicitation, including requests for information on how to submit a proposal abstract or proposal to this BAA, must be directed to one of the administrative addresses below by 4:00 PM, January 31, 1997, e-mail or fax is preferred. DARPA intends to use electronic mail and fax for some of the correspondence regarding BAA 97-06. Proposals and proposal abstracts may not be submitted by fax, any so sent will be disregarded. The administrative addresses for this BAA are: Fax: 703-522-7161 Addressed to: DARPA/ITO, BAA 97-06, Electronic Mail: baa9706@darpa.mil, Electronic File Retrieval: http://www.ito.darpa.mil/Solicitations.html, Mail: DARPA/ITO, ATTN: BAA 97-06, 3701 N. Fairfax Drive Arlington, VA 22203-1714. (0303)

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