The following special sessions will be organized at SoC 2014. Advances in High Performance Reconfigurable Architectures Organizers: Waqar Hussain, Tampere University of Technology, Finland Diana Göhringer, Ruhr-Universität, Bochum, Germany João Cardoso, University of Porto, Portugal Reconfigurable Architectures are very important in the field of computer systems. They are required in domains ranging from consumer electronics to military and space applications. In academia, there are a number of peer-reviewed high rated conferences and journals targeted on this specific field . Furthermore in top ranking conferences the submission of articles related to reconfigurable computing is highly appreciated. The proceedings of the International Symposium on System-on-Chip in the last five years show a growing number of publications related to reconfigurable architectures. Therefore, there is need to focus on this topic separately in the form of a special session in SoC 2014. Multicore and Manycore Architectures, Applications and Platforms Organizers: Waqar Hussain, TUT, Finland Diana Göhringer, Ruhr-Universität, Bochum, Germany Gabriel Almeida, Leica Biosystems, Nussloch, Germany Marco D. Santambrogio, Politecnico di Milano, Italy Multicore architectures appear often in nowadays products. This fact moves researches in both academia and industry to propose solutions that deal with a series of challenges. The strong demand for high performance, low power, easy to maintain systems have been the main drivers when selecting the technology to be used for different purposes. From an abstract architectural view, two platform configurations present the pros and cons of such complex systems. On one hand heterogeneous architectures are introduced to be very robust solutions with very high performance, low power, tailored to the applications. These architectures are very popular and welcomed in industry as they offer high-end solutions, customized to a certain problem domain. However their programmability imposes a series of limitations to complexity, making the time-to-market a limiting factor in the development of new products. On the other hand, homogeneous architectures offer more flexibility taking the advantage of general-purpose systems, making its programmability easier and often reducing the time to market. As they are not tailored to the applications, they are not efficient in terms of many performance metrics when compared to heterogeneous systems. Furthermore, scaling the number of cores does not proportionally scale the performance but their ability of cross-platform code portability makes them outstanding among other platforms in comparison. This special session aims to bring worldwide state-of-the-art researches on multicore and manycore platforms and intends to share the newest achievement from both academia and industry. Attendees are invited to submit their latest achievements and contributions in any of the topics: Programming models in multicore/manycore systems General Purpose Homogeneous and Application-specific heterogeneous multi and manycore platforms Standalone applications vs operating systems driven approach in multicore architectures Simulation tools, models, etc. for the testing and validation of complex architectures Design-space exploration case-studies and tools Survey Articles, e.g., market trends in homogeneous/heterogeneous architectures for product development SoC 2014 PhD Forum Organizers: Diana Göhringer, Ruhr-Universität, Bochum, Germany Roberto Airoldi, Tampere University of Technology, Finland This year SoC 2014 will host a PhD forum, providing opportunity for PhD students to present their thesis work to a broad audience in the SoC community from both industry and academia. The PhD forum may also help students to establish contacts for entering the job market. Eligibility: Students who have finished their Ph.D. dissertation/thesis within the last 12 months or students who will finish to their thesis work in less than one year.