ieee-international-symposium-on-high-performance-computer-architecture - SKILL.md Agent Skill

name: ieee-international-symposium-on-high-performance-computer-architecture description: Use when targeting IEEE International Symposium on High-Performance Computer Architecture (HPCA) or deciding whether a computer-science manuscript fits this venue. Encodes conference fit, framing, evidence bar, submission-cycle checks, rebuttal posture, and desk-reject risks for computer architecture.

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>