The Computer Architecture Group at the University of Mannheim has the expertise to design complex hardware/software systems. As system architects we cover not only the operation principles but include the technology and the software to build real working prototypes. The group holds a profound expert knowledge in the area of design space analysis,
hardware design of processors and devices, interconnection networks, and software driver development, especially for the construction of large computing clusters based on PC technology.
All levels of system design are covered, starting at the application programming interface, e.g. MPI, through the efficient design of device drivers finishing at custom build hardware devices based on standard cells. 
Goals of the applied research activities are to cover a broad range of methodologies for the design of complete high performance systems with the possibility to optimize every level and educate students on the various real world topics.
The group mainly focuses on the design of parallel architectures which achieve their high performance by improving communication between computational devices/units. Scaling such systems is a great challenge to the architecture of the interconnection network (IN) and the network interface controller (NIC). Special attention is paid on the interface between software and hardware to setup communication instructions.

An overview of ongoing and finished research projects can be found at
http://www.ra.informatik.uni-mannheim.de/index.php?page=projects

In 2006 AMD announced, in conjunction with the Computer Architecture Group at the University of Mannheim in Germany, the creation of the Mannheim Center of Excellence (COE), for research for HyperTransport™ technology. As the first academic licensee of coherent HyperTransport (cHT), the research at the Mannheim COE is expected to directly benefit the academic community and the development of next-generation technology that leverages HyperTransport. Early results from the Mannheim COE research include the release of an HTX board for universities and companies that research compute-intensive testing and
design applications and an FPGA-mappable HyperTransport 2.0 core, as well as a
cache-coherent HT core.

The Center of Excellence for HyperTransport technology can be reached at
http://www.ra.informatik.uni-mannheim.de/coeht/

Your contact person is Sven Kapferer ( s [dot] kapferer [at]
ti [dot] uni-mannheim [dot] de ) if you have any further questions.