UEEA4653: Computer Architecture

Introduction
Instructor: Dr. LAI, An-Chow

UUEA4653 May 2015

Course Info.

Email:
laiac@utar.edu.my
Office:
KB Block 8th floor Room 11(3)
Office hours: Tuesday 2pm-4pm, Thursday2pm-4pm, or
by appointment
Midterm: 31-July-2015, in class
Textbook:
Patterson D. A. / Hennessy J. L., (1998) 2nd Ed. Computer
Organisation and Design: The Hardware/ Software Interface, Morgan
Kaufmann.

Copyright Dr. Lai An Chow

Introduction

Evaluation

Weight breakdown

Final
Midterm
Assignments
Labs

60%
15%
15%;
10%

will choose the best 3 out of 4.

Coursework

5 tutorials
Start on 3rd week, i.e. 26-June-2015 (Thursday)
Randomly choose students to explain their works during tutorial
Part of tutorial questions are Assignment questions
Assignment answers are due before each tutorial starts
2 labs (group of 2)
Lab #1 planned on Week#4 (TBD)
Lab #2 planned on Week#10 (TBD)

Copyright Dr. Lai An Chow

Introduction

Why Learning Computer Architecture?

Computers have led to a third revolution for civilization:

agricultural -> industrial -> information
Computers in various forms:

Standalone computers: including supercomputers, desktop

computers, laptop computers, handheld computers, pocket-sized
computers, etc.
Embedded computers: in electrical appliances, automatic teller
machines, automobiles, mobile phones, smart cards, etc.
Networks of computers: wide area networks, local area
networks, internet, intranets, extranets, World Wide Web, Cloud
computing
Today, use of computer is everywhere!
Essential to know how the computer is built

Copyright Dr. Lai An Chow

Introduction

What Covered in this class?

How computers work

Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) Chapter 2

Computer Arithmetic and implementation Chapter 3
Issues affecting design of modern processors Chapter 5 & 6
Exploiting memory hierarchy Chapter 7
Bus and I/O Chapter 8
Multiprocessor (depending on the progress)

How to measure and analyze computer performance

To tell why a design is good or bad Chapter 4

Copyright Dr. Lai An Chow

The Organization of a Computer

Introduction

Five Basic Components

Input: writes instructions and

data to memory.
Output: reads data from memory.
Memory: stores instructions and data.
Processor, which consists of:

Datapath: processes data according to instructions.

Control: commands the operations of input, output, memory, and
datapath according to instructions.

Copyright Dr. Lai An Chow

Introduction

Real Stuff

Copyright Dr. Lai An Chow

Introduction

Levels of Abstraction

Impossible to understand computer components by looking at every

single transistor. Instead, abstraction is needed.

Our Main Focus

Instruction Set Architecture (ISA)

Hardware
System Software (e.g. Windows, Linux)

Applications (Powerpoint, Warcraft, Winamp)

Copyright Dr. Lai An Chow

Introduction

Levels of Abstraction (contd)

Key ideas:

Both hardware and software are organized into hierarchical

layers
Hierarchical organization helps to cope with system complexity
Lower-level details are hidden to offer a simpler view at higher
levels
Interaction between levels occurs only through well-defined
interface

Examples?

Copyright Dr. Lai An Chow

Introduction

Example on Software Levels of Abstraction

10

s w a p ( in t v [ ], in t k )

for human

{ in t te m p ;

High-level language
program (in C)

te m p = v [k ];
v [ k ] = v [k + 1 ];
v [k+ 1 ] = te m p ;
}

C compiler

Assembly (low-level)
language program (for MIPS)

sw ap:
m u li $ 2 , $ 5 , 4
a d d $ 2 , $ 4 ,$ 2
lw
$ 1 5 , 0 ($ 2 )
lw
$ 1 6 , 4 ($ 2 )
sw
$1 6, 0($2 )
sw
$1 5, 4($2 )
jr $ 3 1

Assembler

for machine

00000000101000010000000000011000
00000000100011100001100000100001
10001100011000100000000000000000
10001100111100100000000000000100
10101100111100100000000000000000
10101100011000100000000000000100
00000011111000000000000000001000

Binary machine language

program (for MIPS)

Copyright Dr. Lai An Chow

Introduction

Instruction Set Architecture

11

An instruction set architecture (ISA) provides an abstract

interface between hardware and low-level software.
Example: 80x86; Pentium series; Core Duo series, etc. all implement

the same ISA

Advantage: allows different implementations of varying cost and

performance to follow the same instruction set architecture.

Questions?
Some modern instruction set architectures:

80x86/Pentium/K6 (offers different implementations)

MIPS
PowerPC
SPARC
HP PA-RISC
Alpha

Copyright Dr. Lai An Chow

Introduction

Putting all together: Hardware and Software

12

Application (Chrome, Games)

Software

Operating system
Compiler

(Windows 98)

Assembler

Instruction Set Architecture

Memory

I/O system

Datapath & control

Hardware

Digital design
Circuit design
Transistors

Copyright Dr. Lai An Chow

Introduction

Rapidly Changing Forces on Computer Architecture

Technology

13

Operating systems

Computer
Architecture

Programming languages

Applications

Copyright Dr. Lai An Chow

Introduction

Different Technologies for Computers

14

Year

Technology used in
computers

Relative
performance
per unit cost

1951

Vacuum tube

1965

Transistor

35

1975

Integrated circuit (IC)

900

1995

Very large scale integrated

(VLSI) circuit

2,400,000

2005

Ultra large scale integrated

circuit

6,200,400,000

Copyright Dr. Lai An Chow

Introduction

Moores Law

15

A computing term which originated around 1970, by Gordon Moore

It states that

Overall processing power for computers will double every two

years, or
The number of transistors on an affordable CPU would double
every two years

Copyright Dr. Lai An Chow

Introduction

What happening at Intel

Copyright Dr. Lai An Chow

What happening at Intel

Copyright Dr. Lai An Chow

What happening at Intel

Copyright Dr. Lai An Chow

16

Introduction

17

Introduction

18

Introduction

What happening at Intel

19

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Introduction

Dramatic Technological Advances

20

Processor:

Logic capacity: ~30% per year

Clock rate: ~20% per year
Is it still true today?

Memory:

DRAM capacity: ~60% per year (or ~4X every 3 years)

Memory speed: ~10% per year
Cost per bit: decreases ~25% per year

Disk:

Capacity: ~60% per year

Copyright Dr. Lai An Chow

Introduction

Big Concern Beside Performance: POWER!

Power Density
(W/cm2)

21

Suns Surface

10,000

Rocket Nozzle
1,000

Nuclear Reactor
100

8008 8085
1

Hot Plate

8086

10

40048080

1970

286

1980

386

Pentium
Processors

486

1990

2000

2010

Reference: Pat Gelsinger, CTO of Intel

Copyright Dr. Lai An Chow

Introduction

Two Types of Architectures Were Proposed

22

Harvard architecture

separate busses for data and instruction transfers

transfers can be performed simultaneously on both busses

Von Neumann architecture

only one bus is used (shared) for data and instruction transfers
data transfers and instruction fetches must be scheduled;
because they cannot be performed at the same time

Copyright Dr. Lai An Chow

Introduction

Two Types of Architectures

23

Questions?
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Introduction

Key Concepts to Remember

24

Five basic components of a computer

input, output, memory, processor (datapath + control)

Principle of abstraction

Help cope with design complexity by hiding low level details

Instruction set architecture

Important abstraction interfaces hardware and low-level software

Copyright Dr. Lai An Chow

Introduction