ISCA 2026

The International Symposium on Computer Architecture (ISCA) is the premier forum for new ideas and experimental results in computer architecture. The conference specifically seeks particularly forward-looking and novel submissions. The 53^rd edition of ISCA will be held in Raleigh, NC, between June 27 and July 1, 2026.

As with prior ISCAs, there will be a main track and an industry track. For both tracks, the dates, topics, and some review policies are presented here. For additional information on the industry track, please see the industry track call for papers.

ISCA-53 will be conducting Artifact Evaluation. Authors of accepted papers are encouraged to submit their artifacts for evaluation.

Topics

Papers are solicited on a broad range of topics, including (but not limited to):

• Processor, memory, and storage systems architecture
• Parallelism: instruction, thread, data, multiprocessor
• Datacenter-scale computing
• IoT, mobile, edge, and embedded architecture
• Verification, testing, and correctness
• Interconnection networks, routers, and network interface architectures
• Power and energy
• Sustainable computing
• Architectures for emerging applications including machine learning and bioinformatics
• Architectural support for programming languages or software development
• Architectural support for interfacing with accelerators
• Architectural support for security, virtual memory, and virtualization
• Dependable processor and system architecture
• Architectures for emerging technologies including novel circuits, memory technologies, etc.
• Quantum computer architecture
• Architecture modeling, simulation methodologies, and tools
• Evaluation and measurement of real computing systems
• Human factors and user studies

New Policies Regarding Expected Reviewer Service for Authors

To keep high review quality and ensure a productive and pleasant reviewer experience in anticipation of increasing paper submissions, for ISCA-53, we are initiating two new expectations for authors.

PC Service for Authors Submitting More than 6 Abstracts

Any senior author (i.e., holding a PhD or having equivalent level of seniority) registering more than 6 abstracts (regardless of whether any of those abstracts are later withdrawn) may be called upon to serve on the PC and cannot decline. Another other senior author may be nominated in place. Final decisions on this matter will be at the discretion of the PC chairs.

Reserve Reviewers

To prepare for the possibility of a higher volume of submissions, we expect at least one senior author (as defined above) per paper must register as a reserve reviewer (unless exempt under the criteria below). [We thank the OOPSLA program chairs for piloting this practice!]

The goal of this policy is to uphold the high standard of reviews within the TCCA/SIGARCH/SIGMICRO/TCMM community. To achieve this, we must ensure manageable review loads, prevent burnout, and encourage reviewers to stay engaged for future rounds. High-quality reviews are one of the community’s greatest assets, playing a crucial role in elevating the quality of research for everyone.

Our hope is that these reserve reviewers won’t be needed at all! They will only be called upon as ad hoc reviewers if our projections fall significantly short. Even in that case, their review load will be far lighter than that of LPC members, and we will do our best to assign papers that closely match expertise. Those selected to serve as a reviewer will be acknowledged in the proceedings.

When registering a paper in HotCRP, the form will include a field for the designated reserve reviewer. After the final paper submission, we will notify reserve reviewers if their reviewing services will be needed, and they will be expected to enter their areas of expertise in HotCRP in a timely fashion and update their COIs.

We define “senior” authors as those who completed their PhD, or equivalent industry experience. A paper is exempt from the reserve reviewer policy if:

• The paper has no senior authors.
• At least one senior author is already on the program committee.
• At least one senior author is subject to the 6-abstract criterion above.
• Every senior author of the paper satisfies one or more of these criteria:
  • Has never published in a conference sponsored by TCCA, TCMM, SIGARCH, or SIGMICRO.
  • Is (co)chairing a TCCA, TCMM, SIGRACH, or SIGMICRO conference with 150 or more submissions last year, this year, or next year.
  • Has some other exceptional circumstance that didn’t prevent writing the paper but prevents doing any reviewing. This must be cleared at least three days before submission with the PC Chairs.

It is okay for the same person to serve as the reserve reviewer for more than one paper. Please enter their information for each such paper (preferably identically). For cases in which a paper is exempt according to the above criteria, please enter “exempt” in the reserve reviewer field.

Note that these policies mean that authorship cannot be changed after abstract registration and we require paper titles to be finalized at the paper registration time. We hope this will reduce abuse of the abstract registration process to register ghost/placeholder papers.

Concurrent Submissions & Workshops Policy

By submitting a manuscript to ISCA 2026, the authors guarantee that the manuscript has not been previously published or accepted for publication in a substantially similar form in any conference, journal, or the archived proceedings of a workshop (e.g., in the ACM/IEEE digital library) — see exceptions below. The authors also guarantee that no paper that contains significant overlap with the contributions of the submitted paper will be under review for any other conference or journal or an archived proceedings of a workshop during the ISCA 2026 review period. Violation of any of these conditions will lead to rejection.

The only exceptions to the above rules are for the authors' own papers in:

• workshops without archived proceedings such as in the ACM/IEEE digital library (or where the authors chose not to have their paper appear in the archived proceedings), or
• venues such as IEEE CAL or arXiv where there is an explicit policy that such publication does not preclude longer conference submissions.

In all such cases, manuscripts may still be submitted, but should:

• Use a different title for the version you submit to ISCA, and
• Provide this information on the submission form – the PC chair will make this information available to reviewers if it becomes necessary to ensure a fair review.

In addition, it is important to note that ACM/IEEE prohibit authors from reusing their own text or figures without attribution; doing otherwise either violates rules regarding plagiarism or anonymity. This applies to published works only, i.e. not IEEE CAL or arXiv works.

As always, if you are in doubt, it is best to contact the program chairs.

Plagiarism Policies

The following cover a range of ethical issues concerning the misrepresentation of other works or one's own work.

• ACM Plagiarism Policy
• IEEE Plagiarism Policy

Organizers

General Co-Chairs	James Tuck North Carolina State University
	Huiyang Zhou North Carolina State University
Program Co-Chairs	Kevin Skadron University of Virginia
	Carole-Jean Wu Meta
Industry Track Chair	Brad Beckmann AMD