Associate Professor, School of Computing
Ph.D., Rice University, 1992
Professor Carter joined the faculty in
January 1993. His research interests include computer architecture,
operating systems, distributed systems, and computer networks. Of
particular interest are novel memory system designs, both hardware and
software. Dr. Carter is co-leading two research projects: the Impulse
Adaptable Memory Systems project and the Khazana project. The goal of
the Impulse project is to attack the primary problem limiting
performance in future computer systems - the inability of
conventional memory systems to supply data dast enough to avoid
processing stalls - by developing a main memory controller and
associated software that allows applications to dynamically change the
way that the processor's memory hierarchy is managed. Khazana makes
it easier for programmers to develop sophisticated distributed
applications by addressing the shared state management problem faces
by most such applications. Khazana exports the abstraction of a
distributed secure persistent globally shared store that applications
can use to store their shared state. It is responsible for performing
many of the common operations needed by distributed applications,
including replication, consistency management, and fault recovery.