I would like to thank the numerous people who have helped me along the way to completing this dissertation. I thank my committee, Kathryn McKinley, Doug Burger, Steve Keckler, Keshav Pingali, and Scott Mahlke, for their valuable feedback on my research. Their insight has unquestionably improved this dissertation. I am particularly indebted to my advisors, Doug Burger and Kathryn McKinley, for their supervision of this work. I count myself lucky to have had scientists of their caliber to oversee my research. Doug and Kathryn have always challenged me to improve my ideas, yet also encouraged me that those ideas are worth pursuing. I hope that my career in computer science will make them proud. I thank Steve Keckler for his leadership of the TRIPS project along with Doug and Kathryn. My career thus far has been enriched by working on such an ambitious research project as a graduate student. I thank the TRIPS team without whom this work would have been impossible.