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Lecture 2 - CH 01

The document discusses computer architecture and trends in the field. It defines computer architecture as the science of designing hardware components and the hardware/software interface to create a computing system that meets specific goals. It also discusses how [1] Moore's Law has allowed increasing circuit density and opportunities for parallelism over time. And [2] how the focus is shifting from improving single-thread performance through higher clock speeds alone to exploiting greater levels of parallelism through multiple processors and cores as power and thermal limits are reached.

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41 views16 pages

Lecture 2 - CH 01

The document discusses computer architecture and trends in the field. It defines computer architecture as the science of designing hardware components and the hardware/software interface to create a computing system that meets specific goals. It also discusses how [1] Moore's Law has allowed increasing circuit density and opportunities for parallelism over time. And [2] how the focus is shifting from improving single-thread performance through higher clock speeds alone to exploiting greater levels of parallelism through multiple processors and cores as power and thermal limits are reached.

Uploaded by

ali
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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COMPUTER ORGANIZATION AND DESIGN 6th

Edition
The Hardware/Software Interface

Chapter 1
Computer Abstractions
and Technology
What Is Computer Architecture?

Computer Architecture: The science and art of


designing, selecting, and interconnecting hardware
components and designing the hardware/software
interface to create a computing system that meets
functional, performance, energy consumption, cost,
and other specific goals.

2
What Is Computer Architecture?

Computer Architecture: The term architecture is


used here to describe the attributes of a system as
seen by the programmer, i.e., the conceptual
structure and functional behavior as distinct from
the organization of the dataflow and controls, the
logic design, and the physical implementation.

3
What Is Computer Architecture?

▪ Computer Architecture
▪ Instruction Set Architecture & Computer Organization

▪ Instruction Set Architecture (ISA)


▪ WHAT the computer does (logical view)

▪ Computer Organization
▪ HOW the ISA is implemented (physical view)

4
Current State of Architecture

5
Current State of Architecture
Advance of Semiconductors: “Moore’s Law”

Gordon Moore, Founder of Intel


▪ 1965: since the integrated
circuit was invented, the
number of transistors/inch2
in these circuits roughly
doubled every year; this
trend would continue for
the foreseeable future
▪ 1975: revised - circuit
complexity doubles every
18 months

6
Current State of Architecture

Leveraging Moore’s Law Trends

From increasing circuit density to performance:

▪ More transistors = ↑ opportunities for exploiting parallelism

7
The Importance of Architecture

▪ We design smarter and smarter processors


▪ Process technology gives us about 20%
performance improvement per year

▪ Until 2004, performance grew at about


40% per year

▪ The gap is due to architecture! (and compilers)

8
Computer Performance

9
Power

▪ 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.

10
Power

11
§1.7 The Power Wall
Power Trends

◼ In CMOS IC technology
Power = Capacitive load  Voltage 2  Frequency

×30 5V → 1V ×1000

Chapter 1 — Computer Abstractions and Technology — 12


Reducing Power
◼ Suppose a new CPU has
◼ 85% of capacitive load of old CPU
◼ 15% voltage and 15% frequency reduction
Pnew Cold  0.85  (Vold  0.85)2  Fold  0.85
= = 0.85 4
= 0.52
Cold  Vold  Fold
2
Pold

◼ The power wall


◼ We can’t reduce voltage further
◼ We can’t remove more heat
◼ How else can we improve performance?
Chapter 1 — Computer Abstractions and Technology — 13
Important Trends
▪ Historical contributions to performance:
▪ Better processes (faster devices) ~20%
▪ Better circuits/pipelines ~15%
▪ Better organization/architecture ~15%

▪ In the future, bullet-2 will help little, and bullet-1 will


eventually disappear!

Pentium P-Pro P-II P-III P-4 Itanium Montecito


Year 1993 95 97 99 2000 2002 2005
Transistors 3.1M 5.5M 7.5M 9.5M 42M 300M 1720M
Clock Speed 60M 200M 300M 500M 1500M 800M 1800M

Moore’s Law in action


At this point, adding transistors
14
to a core yields little benefit
What’s Next: Parallelism

▪ You probably own a multi-processor

▪ They provide some performance, but it’s hard


to Fully exploit (parallel programming !)

15
What’s Next: Parallelism

16

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