Term Project

Advance Computer Architecture

Spring 2017
For your term project, you have two options:
A) Do research by choosing a topic related to Computer Architecture or Parallel and Distributed systems

B) Do a development project where you will choose a simulator and will implement some technique on it and
then you will present your results.

Following are some suggestions regarding Research Topics. You can even choose your own topic from the
viewpoint of the hardware, compiler and operating systems. Discuss it with me.

Submission:
There are 3 phases.
In first phase you will submit your proposal. You have to submit two page project proposal including a
short description of your topic and a list of references by Tuesday 11th of April. Earlier you finalize, more
time you get to work on topic and get better grades

In the second phase you have to submit your report in soft form till Tuesday 25th of April. It is modifiable till
2nd of May. You have to submit hard copy on or before 2nd of May.

In 3rd phase you have to present your work through a presentation. Presentations will be scheduled in last
three classes starting from 27th of April.

You can also work in a group of two but task should be sufficient enough to justify the number of persons in
the group and at the time of presentation, you should mention the task distribution and role of each member in
the group.

Option A: Research Paper Topics

1. Latest development and issues in GPUs
2. Solving a CPU problem using GPUs
3. The Java Computer, the LISP Machine and other Language Oriented Processors
4. The Connection Machine
5. DNA Computing
6. The Transputer
7. Systolic Arrays
8. The Relationship between Compilers and Computer Architecture
9. Neural Computation
10. Thick Code and rich functions in Computer Architecture
11. Self-Organization in Computer Architecture
12. Fault-Tolerance in Computer Architecture
13. Direct Implementation of Object Oriented Computation
14. Dataflow Computation
15. Tagged-Data Architecture – Direct Typing of Data
16. Intelligent Memory Computers – Imbedding Processors Directly in the Memory
17. Associative Memory Computation
18. Parallelism and Pipelining of Sequential Programs
19. Shared-Memory and Shared-Database Systems
20. Cache-Only Memory Architecture
21. Message Routing and Process Management in Multiprocessor System
22. Compare Shared Memory and Message Passing for Process distribution and synchronization in a multi-
processor System
23. Local Compilation and immediate execution of an intermediate level language
24. Active Networks as a Computer Architecture
25. Caching Strategies and their effect on Multi-Processor Systems
26. Massively Parallel Computation using Local Radio Links
27. Quantum Computation
28. Resynchronization of Parallel Statement Execution of a Sequential Program
29. Cellular Automata
30. Error Correction and Information Theory
31. Optical Computers
32. Random Methods in Computation
33. Analog Computer
34. Hybrid Analog-Digital Computers
35. Computer Architecture based on Multi-Value Logic
36. Mechanical Computation with a Nano-Machines
37. The Effect of Coupling and Coupling Strategies in Concurrent Computation

Option B: Simulation Tools

Following is the list of Simulator related to computer Architecture course. The list is available from the link
http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~arch/www/tools.html which also have some other tools available. So you can
choose one of these simulators and implement some technique that you have studied in this course.
o SimpleScalar Simulator: Wisconsin and LLC
o GEMS - General Execution-driven Multiprocessor Simulator (GEMS), based on Simics
o SimOS - full system simulator
o Simics - full system simulator
o Bochs - Open-source IA-32 Full System Emulator Project
o ATL CSIM - General purpose high level computer architecture simulator, C-based with graphics
o ML-RSIM - Detailed execution-driven simulator running a Unix-compatible operating system
o Dinero IV - trace-driven uniprocessor cache simulator
o WARTS - Wisconsin Architectural Research Tool Set
o WWT2 - Wisconsin Wind Tunnel II - multiprocessor simulator
o EEL - an Executable Editing Library
o QPT2 - a program profiling and tracing tool
o RSIM - Rice Simulator for ILP Multiprocessors
o SIMCA - the SImulator for Multithreaded Computer Architecture
o SimplePower - execution-driven datapath energy estimation tool based on SimpleScalar
o AMD's x86-64 simulator
o LDA-Simulator Flexible Memory-Hierarchy Simulator, LDA stands for Latency-of-Data-Access
Model
o ABSS - SPARC multiprocessor simulator
o HASE - a Hierarchical computer Architecture design and Simulation Environment developed at the
University of Edinburgh to support both research (e.g. performance evaluation of computing systems)
and teaching (e.g the visualisation of activities taking place inside computers as they execute
programs). Several simulation models are available to download for use in teaching.
o Shade - instruction-set simulator and custom trace generator new site
o MINT - (MIPS INTerpreter) is a fast program-driven simulator for multiprocessor systems
o Augmint - multiprocessor tracing-simulation tool, based on MINT
o PRIMA cache simulator - for studying prefetching and cache performance in multimedia and image-
based applications
o SMPCache - Simulator for Cache MemorySystems on Symmetric Multiprocessors - SMPCache
provides an educational tool for examining cache design issues for symmetric multiprocessor. It is a
 portable software package that runs on PC systems with Windows. It is available at no cost for
noncommercial use.
o WinMIPS64 - a MIPS 64-bit pipeline simulator - A MIPS-64 simulator, replacement for WinDLX
o TurboSMARTSim - Fast and accurate timing simulation through rigorous statistical sampling and
live-points
o Flexus 2.0 (simflex) - Component-based full-system multiprocessor in-order/out-of-order simulation
infrastructure; extends Simics; 2.0 release enhances speed, adds directory-based coherence
components
o Flexus-VFI - a version of the Flexus CMPFlex.OoO chip-multiprocesor simulator. It extends
CMPFlex.OoO to model voltage/frequency island based systems in which cores and cache banks can
all be run at varying frequencies. It also adds dynamic and static power modeling, thermal modeling,
and dynamic voltage/frequency scaling.
o SimCore - SimCore is a project name to provide computer architecture core tools including
processorsimulators. (We have developed SimCore/Alpha Functional Simulator for research and
education activities. Its design policy is to keep the source code readable (enjoyable and easy to read)
and simple. SimCore/Alpha Functional Simulator is an Alpha-AXP processor functional simulator
written in C++.)
o SID - Red Hat's SID framework for building computer system simulations
o LSE - A high-level processor modeling system supporting component reuse and a library of
predefined flexible model components. Models are automatically compiled into executable
simulators.
o IATO (IA64 Toolkit) - IATO, the IAOO Toolkit is a flexible environment that permits to analyze,
emulate or simulate the IA64 Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) binary executables. IATO is a
flexible and portable framework that is built around a set of C++
o libraries and clients. The fundamental clients are the IA64 emulator+and simulators. Other clients
provides supports for program analysis and statistical computation.
o NePSim - A Network Processor Simulator with Power Evaluation Framework. NePSim is the first
open source integrated infrastructure for analyzing and optimizing NP design and power dissipation
at architecture-level. NePSim contains a cycle-accurate simulator for a typical NP architecture (Intel's
IXP1200), an automatic verification framework for testing and validation, and a power estimation
model for measuring the power consumption of the simulated NP. NePSim achieves satisfactory
accuracy in both performance and power modeling.
o PDIWeb - Web Simulator for Instruction Dynamic Scheduling (of the Pipelining). Following the
concepts explained in the textbook \223Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach\224, 3rd
edition, 2003, Morgan Kaufmann (by Hennessy & Patterson)
o SESC - A fast architectural simulator for CMPs with out-of-order processors.
o PTLsim - PTLsim is a cycle accurate out of order microprocessor simulator and virtual machine for
the x86 and x86-64 instruction sets. PTLsim models a modern speculative out of order x86-64
compatible processor core, cache hierarchy and supporting hardware.
o Full-System Simulator for IBM PowerPC 970 - Execution-driven, full-system simulator for PowerPC
970. It enables development teams both within and outside IBM to simulate a PowerPC 970 system
in order to develop and enhance application support for this platform.
o M-Sim Version 3.0 - A multi-threaded extension to the SimpleScalar simulator.
o M5 - A modular platform for computer system architecture research, encompassing system-level
architecture as well as processor microarchitecture. Supports Alpha, SPARC, MIPS, and ARM ISAs,
with x86 support in progress.
o QEMU - Full system and user-mode simulator, with accelerators for simulating and executing on the
same ISA.
o UNIted SIMulation - Structural simulation
o EduMIPS64 - MIPS64 ISA simulator written in Java/Swing
o Noxim - SystemC-based Network-on-Chip simulator
o Sunflower - Full-system simulator for embedded systems
o FAME - Fast and Accurate Morolora 68000 Emulation Library
o Liberty Simulation Environment - language, compiler, and libraries designed to create hardware
models