Under the auspices of the highly acclaimed program for Industry/University Cooperative Research Centers (I/UCRC) at the National Science Foundation, the longest-running program at NSF, a national center and consortium has been founded known as the NSF Center for High-Performance Reconfigurable Computing (CHREC, pronounced "shreck"). CHREC is comprised of more than 30 leading organizations in this field from the academic, industry, and government sectors with synergistic interests and goals in reconfigurable, adaptive computing for a broad range of missions, from satellites to supercomputers. After a two-year development and selection process at NSF, CHREC became operational in January 2007. The Center is comprised of four research sites, each a major university with a leading research group in this field, coupled with NSF and leading industry and government partners that influence, collaborate, and benefit in the research with technology transfer. As is the nature of an NSF I/UCRC, each industry or government partner supports CHREC with one or more Center memberships, where each membership is commensurate with a slot to fund one graduate student at one of the four sites. In 2008, members sponsored more than 40 memberships in CHREC.
A broad range of goals have been defined with NSF for CHREC, including: (1) Serve as the nation's first and foremost multidisciplinary research center in reconfigurable high-performance computing as a basis for long-term partnership and collaboration amongst industry, academe, and government; (2) Directly support the research needs of industry and government partners in a cost-effective manner with pooled, leveraged resources and maximized synergy; (3) Enhance the educational experience for a diverse set of high-quality graduate and undergraduate students; and (4) Advance the knowledge and technologies in this emerging field and ensure relevance of the research with rapid and effective technology transfer.