Computer Architecture

CS F342
Introduction
 Rapidly changing field:
 vacuum tube -> transistor -> IC -> VLSI
 doubling every 1.5 years:
 memory capacity
 processor speed (due to advances in technology
and hardware organization)
 Moore’s Law Core 2 Duo (Conroe)
P4 Extreme Ed. 291 millions, July
IBM POWER5 has 178 millions w/ 2MB L3 2006
276 million transistors

Intel Dual-Core Xeon (P4-based 42 millions

Tulsa) w/ 16MB unified L3:
1.328 billion, 2006

2,250 Exponential growth

Transistor count will be doubled every 18 months

 Gordon Moore, Intel co-founder
Integrated Circuits Capacity
Feature Size

We are currently at 0.014µm

Average Transistor Cost Per Year
The Processor Market
The Five Classic Components
of a Computer
 Input (mouse, keyboard, …)
 Output (display, printer, …)
 Memory Input
 main (DRAM), cache (SRAM)
 secondary (disk,
CD, DVD, …) Output
 Datapath Processor Processor
 Control (CPU)
Control
Memory
1001010010110000
0010100101010001
1111011101100110
1001010010110000
Datapath 1001010010110000
1001010010110000
Our Primary Focus
 Things we’ll be learning:
 how computers work, what’s a good design, what’s not
 how to make them
 issues affecting modern processors (e.g., caches, pipelines)

 The processor (CPU)…

 datapath

 control

 …implemented using millions of transistors

 …impossible to understand by looking at individual transistors
 we need...
 Abstraction

High Level
main() {
int i,b,c,a[10];
 Delving into the depths
for (i=0; i<10; i++)…
Language a[2] = b + c*i;
reveals more information
}
 An abstraction omits unneeded
detail,
Compiler helps us cope with complexity
 What are some of the details
ISA … that appear in these familiar
lw r2, mem[r7]
add r3, r4, r2
st r3, mem[r8]
abstractions?

Assembler
Inside the Processor
 AMD Barcelona: 4 processor cores
The Instruction Set: a Critical Interface

software

instruction set

hardware
Instruction Set Architecture
 A very important abstraction:
 interface between hardware and low-level software
 standardizes instructions, machine language bit patterns,
etc.
 advantage: allows different implementations of the same
architecture
 disadvantage: sometimes prevents adding new innovations

 Modern instruction set architectures:

 80x86/Pentium/K6, PowerPC, DEC Alpha, MIPS, SPARC, HP
What is Computer Architecture?
Easy Answer

Computer Architecture =
Instruction Set Architecture +
Machine Organization
What is Computer Architecture?
Better (More Detailed) Answer

Application
Operating
System
Compiler Firmware
Instruction Set
Architecture
Instr Set Proc. I/O system
Datapath & Control

Digital Design
Circuit Design
Layout
Forces on Computer Architecture

Technology Programming
Languages

Applications
Computer
Architecture

Operating
Systems
History
Where we are headed
 Performance issues
 A specific instruction set architecture
 Arithmetic and how to build an ALU
 Constructing a processor to execute our instructions
Pipelining to improve performance
 Memory: caches and virtual memory
 I/O
Patterson & Hennessy book

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Components

Mid Sem Test :70

Lab (Reg+Test) :45

Comprehensive :85
The Role of Performance
 Performance
 Performance is the key to understanding underlying motivation
for the hardware and its organization
 Measure, report, and summarize performance to enable users to
 make intelligent choices

 see through the marketing hype!

 Why is some hardware better than others for different programs?

 What factors of system performance are hardware related?
(e.g., do we need a new machine, or a new operating system?)
 How does the machine's instruction set affect performance?
 What do we measure?
Define performance….

Airplane Passengers Range (mi) Speed (mph)

Boeing 737-100 101 630 598

Boeing 747 470 4150 610
BAC/Sud Concorde 132 4000 1350
Douglas DC-8-50 146 8720 544

 How much faster is the Concorde compared to the 747?

 How much bigger is the Boeing 747 than the Douglas DC-8?

 So which of these airplanes has the best performance?!

 Defining Performance
 Which airplane has the best performance?

Boeing 777 Boeing 777

Boeing 747 Boeing 747

BAC/Sud BAC/Sud
Concorde Concorde
Douglas Douglas DC-
DC-8-50 8-50

0 100 200 300 400 500 0 2000 4000 6000 8000 10000

Passenger Capacity Cruising Range (miles)

Boeing 777 Boeing 777

Boeing 747 Boeing 747

BAC/Sud BAC/Sud
Concorde Concorde
Douglas Douglas DC-
DC-8-50 8-50

0 500 1000 1500 0 100000 200000 300000 400000

Cruising Speed (mph) Passengers x mph

Computer Performance:
TIME, TIME, TIME!!!
 Response Time (elapsed time, latency):
 how long does it take for my job to run?
 how long does it take to execute (start to Individual user
finish) my job? concerns…

 how long must I wait for the database query?

 Throughput:
 how many jobs can the machine run at once?
Systems manager
 what is the average execution rate? concerns…
 how much work is getting done?
Execution Time
 Elapsed Time
 counts everything (disk and memory accesses, waiting for I/O,
running other programs, etc.) from start to finish
 a useful number, but often not good for comparison purposes
elapsed time = CPU time + wait time (I/O, other programs, etc.)

 CPU time
 doesn't count waiting for I/O or time spent running other programs
 can be divided into user CPU time and system CPU time (OS calls)
CPU time = user CPU time + system CPU time
 elapsed time = user CPU time + system CPU time + wait time

 Our focus: user CPU time (CPU execution time or, simply, execution
time)
 time spent executing the lines of code that are in our program
Definition of Performance
 For some program running on machine X:

PerformanceX = 1 / Execution timeX

 X is n times faster than Y means:

PerformanceX / PerformanceY = n
Clock Cycles
 Instead of reporting execution time in seconds, we often use
cycles. In modern computers hardware events progress cycle by
cycle: in other words, each event, e.g., multiplication, addition,
etc., is a sequence of cycles
seconds cycles seconds
 
program program cycle
 Clock ticks indicate start and end of cycles:

cycle time
tick

tick

 cycle time = time between ticks = seconds per cycle

 clock rate (frequency) = cycles per second (1 Hz. = 1
cycle/sec, 1 MHz. = 106 cycles/sec)
1
 Example: A 200 Mhz. clock has a  10 9  5 nanoseconds
cycle time 200  10 6
Performance Equation I

seconds cycles seconds

 
program program cycle

equivalently

CPU execution time CPU clock cycles  Clock cycle time

=
for a program for a program

 So, to improve performance one can either:

 reduce the number of cycles for a program, or
 reduce the clock cycle time, or, equivalently,
 increase the clock rate
How many cycles are required for a program?
 Could assume that # of cycles = # of instructions

2nd instruction
3rd instruction
1st instruction

4th
5th
6th
...
time

 This assumption is incorrect! Because:

 Different instructions take different amounts of time (cycles)
How many cycles are required for a
program?

time

 Multiplication takes more time than addition

 Floating point operations take longer than integer ones
 Accessing memory takes more time than accessing registers
 Important point: changing the cycle time often changes the
number of cycles required for various instructions because it
means changing the hardware design.
Example
 Our favorite program runs in 10 seconds on computer A, which
has a 4GHz. clock.
 We are trying to help a computer designer build a new machine
B, that will run this program in 6 seconds. The designer can
use new (or perhaps more expensive) technology to
substantially increase the clock rate, but has informed us that
this increase will affect the rest of the CPU design, causing
machine B to require 1.2 times as many clock cycles as machine
A for the same program.

 What clock rate should we tell the designer to target?

Clock cycles(A)=40x109
6=1.2x 40x109/Clock rate(B)
Clock rate (B)=8GHz
 Terminology
 A given program will require:
 some number of instructions (machine instructions)
 some number of cycles
 some number of seconds
 We have a vocabulary that relates these quantities:
 cycle time (seconds per cycle)
 clock rate (cycles per second)
 (average) CPI (cycles per instruction)
 a floating point intensive application might have a higher
average CPI
 MIPS (millions of instructions per second)
 this would be higher for a program using simple
instructions
Performance Measure
 Performance is determined by execution time

 Do any of these other variables equal performance?

 # of cycles to execute program?

 # of instructions in program?

 # of cycles per second?

 average # of cycles per instruction?

 average # of instructions per second?

 Common pitfall : thinking one of the variables is indicative of

performance when it really isn’t
Performance Equation II

CPU execution time Instruction count  average CPI  Clock cycle time
=
for a program for a program

 Derive the above equation from Performance Equation I

seconds cycles seconds

 
program program cycle
CPI Example
 Computer A: Cycle Time = 250ps, CPI = 2.0
 Computer B: Cycle Time = 500ps, CPI = 1.2
 Same ISA
 Which is faster, and by how much?
CPU Time  Instructio n Count  CPI  Cycle Time
A A A
 I  2.0  250ps  I  500ps A is faster…
CPU Time  Instructio n Count  CPI  Cycle Time
B B B
 I  1.2  500ps  I  600ps

B  I  600ps  1.2
CPU Time
CPU Time I  500ps …by this much
A
 CPI in More Detail
 If different instruction classes take different
numbers of cycles
n
Clock Cycles   (CPIi  Instruction Count i )
i1

 Weighted average CPI

Clock Cycles n
 Instruction Count i 
CPI     CPIi  
Instruction Count i1  Instruction Count 

Relative
frequency
CPI Example
 Alternative compiled code sequences using
instructions in classes A, B, C

Class A B C
CPI for class 1 2 3
IC in sequence 1 2 1 2
IC in sequence 2 4 1 1

 Sequence 1: IC = 5  Sequence 2: IC = 6
 Clock Cycles  Clock Cycles
= 2×1 + 1×2 + 2×3 = 4×1 + 1×2 + 1×3
= 10 =9
 Avg. CPI = 10/5 =  Avg. CPI = 9/6 = 1.5
2.0
MIPS Example
 Two different compilers are being tested for a 4 GHz. machine
with three different classes of instructions: Class A, Class B,
and Class C, which require 1, 2 and 3 cycles (respectively).
Both compilers are used to produce code for a large piece of
software.
 Compiler 1 generates code with 5 billion Class A instructions, 1
billion Class B instructions, and 1 billion Class C instructions.
 Compiler 2 generates code with 10 billion Class A instructions, 1
billion Class B instructions, and 1 billion Class C instructions.

 Which sequence will be faster according to MIPS?

 Which sequence will be faster according to execution time?
Performance Summary

Instructions Clock cycles Seconds

CPU Time   
Program Instruction Clock cycle

 Performance depends on
 Algorithm: affects IC, possibly CPI
 Programming language: affects IC, CPI
 Compiler: affects IC, CPI
 Instruction set architecture: affects IC, CPI, Tc
Benchmarks
 Performance best determined by running a real application
 use programs typical of expected workload
 or, typical of expected class of applications
e.g., compilers/editors, scientific applications, graphics, etc.

 Benchmark suites
 Perfect Club: set of application codes
 Livermore Loops: 24 loop kernels
 Linpack: linear algebra package
 SPEC: mix of code from industry organization
SPEC (System Performance Evaluation
Corporation)
 Sponsored by industry but independent and self-managed –
trusted by code developers and machine vendors
 Clear guides for testing, see www.spec.org
 Regular updates (benchmarks are dropped and new ones added
periodically according to relevance)
 Specialized benchmarks for particular classes of applications
SPEC History
 First Round: SPEC CPU89
 10 programs yielding a single number
 Second Round: SPEC CPU92
 SPEC CINT92 (6 integer programs) and SPEC CFP92 (14 floating
point programs)
 compiler flags can be set differently for different programs
 Third Round: SPEC CPU95
 new set of programs: SPEC CINT95 (8 integer programs) and SPEC
CFP95 (10 floating point)
 single flag setting for all programs
 Fourth Round: SPEC CPU2000
 new set of programs: SPEC CINT2000 (12 integer programs) and
SPEC CFP2000 (14 floating point)
 single flag setting for all programs
 programs in C, C++, Fortran 77, and Fortran 90
CINT2000 (Integer component of SPEC
CPU2000)
Program Language What It Is
164.gzip C Compression
175.vpr C FPGA Circuit Placement and Routing
176.gcc C C Programming Language Compiler
181.mcf C Combinatorial Optimization
186.crafty C Game Playing: Chess
197.parser C Word Processing
252.eon C++ Computer Visualization
253.perlbmk C PERL Programming Language
254.gap C Group Theory, Interpreter
255.vortex C Object-oriented Database
256.bzip2 C Compression
300.twolf C Place and Route Simulator
 CFP2000 (Floating point component of
SPEC CPU2000)
Program Language What It Is
168.wupwise Fortran 77 Physics / Quantum Chromodynamics
171.swim Fortran 77 Shallow Water Modeling
172.mgrid Fortran 77 Multi-grid Solver: 3D Potential Field
173.applu Fortran 77 Parabolic / Elliptic Differential Equations
177.mesa C 3-D Graphics Library
178.galgel Fortran 90 Computational Fluid Dynamics
179.art C Image Recognition / Neural Networks
183.equake C Seismic Wave Propagation Simulation
187.facerec Fortran 90 Image Processing: Face Recognition
188.ammp C Computational Chemistry
189.lucas Fortran 90 Number Theory / Primality Testing
191.fma3d Fortran 90 Finite-element Crash Simulation
200.sixtrack Fortran 77 High Energy Physics Accelerator Design
301.apsi Fortran 77 Meteorology: Pollutant Distribution
SPEC CPU2000 reporting
 Refer SPEC website www.spec.org for documentation
 Single number result – geometric mean of normalized ratios for
each code in the suite
 Report precise description of machine
 Report compiler flag setting
SPEC CPU Benchmark
 SPEC CPU2006
 Elapsed time to execute a selection of programs
 Negligible I/O, so focuses on CPU performance
 Normalize relative to reference machine
 Summarize as geometric mean of performance ratios
 CINT2006 (integer) and CFP2006 (floating-point)

n
n
 Execution time ratio
i1
i
CINT2006 for Opteron X4 2356
Name Description IC×109 CPI Tc (ns) Exec time Ref time SPECratio
perl Interpreted string processing 2,118 0.75 0.40 637 9,777 15.3
bzip2 Block-sorting compression 2,389 0.85 0.40 817 9,650 11.8
gcc GNU C Compiler 1,050 1.72 0.40 724 8,050 11.1
mcf Combinatorial optimization 336 10.00 0.40 1,345 9,120 6.8
go Go game (AI) 1,658 1.09 0.40 721 10,490 14.6
hmmer Search gene sequence 2,783 0.80 0.40 890 9,330 10.5
sjeng Chess game (AI) 2,176 0.96 0.40 837 12,100 14.5
libquantum Quantum computer simulation 1,623 1.61 0.40 1,047 20,720 19.8
h264avc Video compression 3,102 0.80 0.40 993 22,130 22.3
omnetpp Discrete event simulation 587 2.94 0.40 690 6,250 9.1
astar Games/path finding 1,082 1.79 0.40 773 7,020 9.1
xalancbmk XML parsing 1,058 2.70 0.40 1,143 6,900 6.0
Geometric mean 11.7

High cache miss rates

SPEC CPU2000 Benchmark Sample Result

Source: Sun Microsystems

W1100z uses AMD Opteron
100 series CPU

48
 SPEC ‘95
Does doubling the clock rate double the performance?
Can a machine with a slower clock rate have better performance?

10 10

9 9

8 8

7 7

6 6

SPECfp
SPECint

5 5

4 4

3 3

2 2

1 1

0 0
50 100 150 200 250 50 100 150 200 250
Clock rate (MHz)
Clock rate (MHz) Pentium Pentium
Pentium Pro Pentium Pro

49
Specialized SPEC Benchmarks

 I/O
 Network
 Graphics
 Java
 Web server
 Transaction processing (databases)
Amdahl's Law

Execution Time After Improvement =

Execution Time Unaffected +( Execution Time Affected / Amount of Improvement )

Time before

Improvement

Time after
Improvement

51
Amdahl’s Law

 Speed-up = 1
Perfnew / Perfold =Exec_timeold / Exec_timenew = f
(1  f ) 
P
 Performance improvement from using faster mode is limited by the fraction
the faster mode can be applied.

Told
(1 - f) f
Tnew
(1 - f) f/P

52
Example
 "Suppose a program runs in 100 seconds on a machine, with multiply
responsible for 80 seconds of this time. How much do we have to
improve the speed of multiplication if we want the program to run 4
times faster?"

How about making it 5 times faster?

 Principle: Make the common case fast

53
 Remember
 Performance is specific to a particular program/s
 Total execution time is a consistent summary of performance

 For a given architecture performance increases come from:

 increases in clock rate (without adverse CPI affects)
 improvements in processor organization that lower CPI
 compiler enhancements that lower CPI and/or instruction count

 Pitfall: expecting improvement in one aspect of a machine’s

performance to affect the total performance

 You should not always believe everything you read! Read

carefully!

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