The field of computing systems is moving towards a more secure and efficient paradigm, with a focus on bridging the semantic gap between hardware and software. This is being achieved through the development of descriptor-based, object-aware memory systems, which enable hardware to dynamically acquire and enforce the rich semantics of software-defined objects. Additionally, there is a growing interest in formal methods for verifying the security and correctness of hardware and software systems, including the use of domain-specific languages for describing hardware semantics and formal specifications for network protocols.

Noteworthy papers in this area include: Descriptor-Based Object-Aware Memory Systems: A Comprehensive Review, which provides a comprehensive survey of the architectural paradigm designed to bridge the semantic gap between hardware and software. Sockeye: a language for analyzing hardware documentation, which introduces a domain-specific language for describing hardware semantics and assumptions about software behavior, and demonstrates its use in formally proving the security of a diverse set of System-on-Chips.