cse141: Introduction to
Computer Architecture
Steven Swanson
Andiry Xu
Qi Li
Todays Agenda
What is architecture?
Why is it important?
Whats in this class?
Computer Architecture
What is architecture?
How do you build a machine that computes?
Quickly, safely, cheaply, efficiently, in technology X,
for application Y, etc.
Architects develop new mechanism for
performing and organizing mechanical
computation
Why is architecture important?
For the world
Computer architecture provides the engines that power all of
computing
Civilization advances by extending the number of
important operations which we can perform without
thinking about them.
-- Alfred North Whitehead
Why is architecture important?
For the world
Computer architecture provides the engines that power all of
computing
Civilization advances by extending the number of
important operations which we can perform without
thinking about them.
-- Alfred North Whitehead
For you
As computer scientists, software engineers, and
sophisticated users, understanding how computers work is
essential
The processor is the most important piece of this story
Many performance (and efficiency) problems have their roots
in architecture.
7
Orientation
The internet
Form Factors (to scale)
H igh-end S erver
U ltra P ortable
H andheld
Architecturally, these
machines are more similar
than different
Same parts
Different Scale
Different Constraints
Memory
Memory
Memory
PCIe
Memory
Orientation: A Server
Memory
Memory
Memory
Memory
CPU Sockets
Architecture begins about here.
Orientation: MacBook Air
Connectors
System
Hub
CPU
SSD Slot
Memory
Architecture begins about here.
Orientation: iPhone 4s
Flash Memory
on the back
Peripheral
s
Sim
Card
CPU +
DRAM
Architecture begins about here.
You are here
Nehalem Corei7
Quad-core Server
processor
Nvidia Tegra 3
Five-core mobile
processor
Processors are everywhere!
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Abstractions of the Physical World
cse241a/
P hysics/
C hem istry/ E C E dept
M aterialscience
P hysics/M aterials
D evices
This C ourse
M icro-architecture P rocessors
A rchitectures
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for the Rest of the System
cse121
cse131
cse130 cseEverythingElse
JVM
Processor
Architectures
Abstraction
Compilers
Languages
Software
Engineers/Applicatio
ns
Current state of
architecture
Moores Law
The number of transistors we can build in a fixed area
of silicon doubles (roughly) every two years.
Moores Law is the
most important
driver for historic
CPU performance
gains
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Since 1940
50,000 x speedup
>1,000,000,000 x density
(Moores Law)
Plug boards -> Java
Hand assembling -> GCC
No OS -> Windows 7
We have used this performance to make
computers easier to use, easier to program,
and to solve ever-more complicated
problems.
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Where do We Get Performance?
Relative Performance or Clock speed (Mhz)
100000
specINT95 Perf
specINT2000 Perf
specINT2006 Perf
specINT2000 Mhz
specINT2006 Mhz
10000
Clock speed
1000
100
Golden age:
~40-50%/year
10
1
1990
Modern era:
~25%/year
1995
2000
2005
2010
2015
Year
22
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The End of Clock Speed Scaling
Clock speed is the biggest contributor to
power
Chip manufactures (Intel, esp.) pushed clock speeds
very hard in the 90s and early 2000s.
Doubling the clock speed increases power by 2-8x
Clock speed scaling is essentially finished.
Most future performance improvements will
be due to architectural and process
technology improvements
24
Power and heat
25
The Rise of Parallelism
Multi-processors
If one CPU is fast, two must be faster!
They allow you to (in theory) double performance
without changing the clock speed.
Seems simple, so why are becoming so
important now
Speeding up a single CPU makes everything faster!
An applications performance double every 18 months with
no effort on the programmers part.
Getting performance out of a multiprocessor requires
work.
Parallelizing code is difficult, it takes (lots of) work
There arent that many threads
Remember or look forward to cse120
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Intel P4
(2000)
1 core
Intel Core 2 Duo
(2006)
2 cores
Intel Nahalem
(2010)
4 cores
SPARC T3
(2010)
16 cores
Nvidia Tegra 3
(2011)
5 cores
AMD Zambezi
(2011)
16 cores
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Why This Class?
30
The Goal of a Degree in CS or CE
(My $0.02)
To understand the components and
abstractions that make up a modern
computing system
To understand how they impact a systems
performance, efficiency, and usefulness
To be able to harness, modify, and extend
them to solve problems effectively
31
Goals for this Class
Understand how CPUs run programs
How do we express the computation the CPU?
How does the CPU execute it?
How does the CPU support other system components (e.g., the OS)?
What techniques and technologies are involved and how do they work?
Understand why CPU performance (and other metrics) vary.
How does CPU design impact performance?
What trade-offs are involved in designing a CPU?
How can we meaningfully measure and compare computer systems?
Understand why program performance varies
How do program characteristics affect performance?
How can we improve a programs performance by considering the CPU
running it?
How do other system components impact program performance?
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Whats in this Class
Instruction sets
MIPS
x86
ISAs and the compiler
The processor pipeline
Basic design
Pipelining
Dealing with hazards
Speculation and control
Memory technologies
Caching
Operating system
support
Virtual memory
Exceptions, interrupts
IO
Introduction to
multiprocessors
Measuring performance
Amdahls Law
Performance measurement
Metrics
The memory system
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Performance and You!
Live Demo
cd demos/
make
java -server -Xmx$[1024*1024*1024] -Xmx$[1024*1024*1024] LoopNest 1000 ij
java -server -Xmx$[1024*1024*1024] -Xmx$[1024*1024*1024] LoopNest 1000 ji
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cse141 Logistics
35
Course Staff
Instructor:
Steven
Swanson
Lectures Tues + Thurs
Office hours TBA
Discussion sec: Wednesday 44:50 (Center 214).
Office ours TBA
TA: Andiry Xu and Qi Li
See the course web page
for contact information and
office hours:
http://cseweb.ucsd.edu/classes
/sp14/cse141-a/
36
Academic Honesty
Dont cheat.
Cheating on a test will get you an F in the class and
no option to drop, and a visit with your college dean.
Cheating on homeworks means you dont have to
turn them in any more, but you dont get points
either. You will also take at least 25% penalty on
the exam grades.
Copying solutions of the internet or a
solutions manual is cheating.
Review the UCSD student handbook
When in doubt, ask.
37
Course Structure
38
Conventional Lectures
Traditional class structures often look like:
Lecture
First
Exposure
Textbook
Read Hard Stuff
Homework
Exam
See if You
Show Knowledge
Know Hard Stuff
Mastery
This structure is backwards
You see things for the first time in class.
Then you wrestle with the hard parts on your own
Peer Instruction-Based Lectures
Lecture
Homework
Lab
Exam
Q
U
I
Z
First Exposure:
With resources and
Feedback
Learn Hard Stuff:
With teacher and
discussion
Better structure
Practice
Show Knowledge
Knowledge
Mastery
Mastery
First exposure on your own (i.e., read the book)
I help with the hard stuff in class.
Greater opportunity for expert feedback and
interaction!
Science to Back it Up
Crouch, C., Mazur, E. Peer Instruction: Ten years of experience and results
Traditional Instruction
Peer Instruction
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Science to Back it Up
Everyone constructs their own understanding
I cant dump understanding into your brain
To learn YOU must actively work with a
problem and construct your own
understanding of it
Im going to help you do this in class.
You must do it outside of class as well.
Its like muscle development!
Strenuous, repeated effort ->
New Muscle Cells
Strenuous, repeated effort ->
New Neurons, Links!
Development of new neurons in response to difficult learning task
T. Shors, Sci. Amer. Mar 09
Students say discussion is helpful
It really makes you realize exactly what
mistakes you are making and sometimes you
dont feel as bad if you are wrong because
you can see that fellow classmates think the
same way.
Discussion is really helpful as sometimes
when you get lost in other classes, you are
lost for the rest of the lecture. Discussion and
clicker questions help make students realize
when they are getting confused before it is
too late and the discussions with classmates
helps get us back on track
*From an upper division computer science course
Students at UCSD LIKE
Peer Instruction with clickers!
Lower
Division
Non-Majors
Computing
Upper
Division
Math-Based
Computing
Upper
Division
Computin
g
Valuable for my
learning
91%
80%
79%
Recommend
other instructors
use
87%
91%
90%
Lecture: Peer Instruction
Are you prepared?
Quick quiz at beginning of class, using clickers
Correct answers count toward your grade!
Pose carefully designed question
Participation counts toward your grade (not correctness)
Solo vote: Think for yourself and select answer
Discuss: Analyze problem in teams of 3
Practice analyzing, talking about challenging concepts
Reach consensus
If you have questions, raise your hand and I or the TAs will come
around
Group vote: Everyone in group votes
You must all vote the same to get your point
Class wide discussion:
Led by YOU (students) tell us what you talked about in
discussion that everyone should know!
Your Tasks
Sign up for the mailing lists.
Read the text!
Computer Organization and Design: The
Hardware/Software Interface (5th Edition) -- previous
editions are not supported
Im not going to cover everything in class, but you are
responsible for all the assigned text.
Come to class!
I will cover things not in the book.
You are responsible for them too.
Using your clicker (10%)
Reading quizzes (10%)
Homeworks throughout the course. (20%)
One midterm (25%)
One cumulative final (35%)
46
Homeworks
Assigned on Thursday, due one week later
Partly from the book.
These are the best way to prepare for the
tests.
Due in a TAs box, 15 minutes before class
starts.
Check the assignment for which TA to turn it in to.
The mailboxes are located in the grad student mail
room on the second floor of the CSE building.
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Peer instruction
Ill bring in activities to ENGAGE you in exploring your understanding
of the material
Let you practice
Bring out misconceptions
Let us LEARN from each other about difficult parts.
You will be GET CREDIT for your efforts to learn in class
By answering questions with a clicker (iClicker)
Answer 80% of the clicker questions in class, get 10% of your
final grade
Process: Individual Answer, Group Discussion, Group Answer
Register your i-clicker
Log into Ted.
Choose Course tools from the blue menu on the left.
Choose i>Clicker Remote Registration
Set your channel to DC
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Grading
Grading is on a 13 point scale -- F through A+
You will get a letter grade on each assignment
Your final grade is the weighted average of the
assignment grades.
An excel spreadsheet calculates your grades
We will post a sanitized version online once a week.
It will tell you exactly where you stand.
It specifies the curves used for the exams etc.
OpenOffice doesnt run it properly.
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The Link to 141L
You do not need to take 141L along with 141,
but you may need both to get your degree.
The classes are mostly independent, except
You will use what we learn about ISA design in 141L
You will use what we learn about pipeline in 141L.
Questions specific to 141L should go to John
Eldon (the instructor).
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