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Homework 1: (EE275: Advanced Computer Architecture) Due Date: 9/8

The document outlines Homework 1 for EE275: Advanced Computer Architecture, consisting of four questions, each worth 25 points. Questions cover topics such as system reliability in server farms, profit estimation for IC manufacturing, performance evaluation of desktop computers, and enhancements through vector mode execution. Students are required to perform calculations and provide analyses related to these topics by the due date of 9/8.

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Prashanth Sriramsetty
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7 views2 pages

Homework 1: (EE275: Advanced Computer Architecture) Due Date: 9/8

The document outlines Homework 1 for EE275: Advanced Computer Architecture, consisting of four questions, each worth 25 points. Questions cover topics such as system reliability in server farms, profit estimation for IC manufacturing, performance evaluation of desktop computers, and enhancements through vector mode execution. Students are required to perform calculations and provide analyses related to these topics by the due date of 9/8.

Uploaded by

Prashanth Sriramsetty
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Homework 1

(EE275: Advanced Computer Architecture)

Due Date: 9/8


Question 1: (25 points)
In a server farm such as that used by Amazon or eBay, a single failure does not cause the entire
system to crash. Instead, it will reduce the number of requests that can be satisfied at any one
time.
a) If a company has 10,000 computers, each with a MTTF of 35 days, and it experiences
catastrophic failure only if 1/3 of the computers fail, what is the MTTF for the system?
b) If it costs an extra $1000, per computer, to double the MTTF, would this be a good business
decision? Show your work.
c) Figure 1.3 shows, on average, the cost of downtimes, assuming that the cost is equal at all
times of the year. For retailers, however, the Christmas season is the most profitable (and
therefore the most costly time to lose sales). If a catalog sales center has twice as much
traffic in the fourth quarter as every other quarter, what is the average cost of downtime per
hour during the fourth quarter and the rest of the year?

Question 2: (25 points)


Your company would like to estimate the profit of an IC manufacturing project. You will be using
wafers of diameter 30cm with 0.04 defects per cm2 at a cost of $6000 each. Each die has a size of
15mm x 15mm using a process-complexity factor with N=12. For the purposes of this problem,
ignore completely bad wafers, and the costs and failures during testing and packaging. What should
the selling price be to make a profit of 40% of costs?
Question 3: (25 points)
You are asked to evaluate performances of two desktop computers on five different types of
instructions. Computer A has a clock rate of 3.0GHz, while computer B has a clock rate of 2.7GHz.
You are provided by the following measurements:
Computer A Computer B
Instruction Type Instruction Instruction
CPI CPI
Count Count
I 1 6 × 109 2 8 × 109
II 4 12 × 109 1 10 × 109
III 2 14 × 109 4 13 × 109
IV 5 9 × 109 3 14 × 109
V 2 15 × 109 4 18 × 109
a) Evaluate computer A and B based on the average CPI.
b) Which computer is faster on the total execution time?
c) If you want to run some benchmarks that contain an instruction mix of 50% of type II, 30%
of type IV, and 20% of type V, which computer is better according to the execution time?

Question 4: (25 points)


Assume that we are considering enhancing a machine by adding a vector mode to it. When a
computation is performed in vector mode, it is 20 times faster than the normal mode of execution.
We call percentage of time that could be spent using vector mode the percentage of vectorization.
a) What percentage of vectorization is needed to achieve a speedup of 2?
b) What percentage of vectorization is needed to achieve one-half of the maximum speedup
attainable from using vector mode?
c) Suppose you have measured the percentage of vectorization for programs to be 70%. The
hardware design group says they can double the speed of vector rate with a significant
additional engineering investment. You wonder whether the compiler crew could increase
the use of vector mode as another approach to increasing performance. How much of an
increase in the percentage of vectorization (relative to the current usage) would the
compiler team need to obtain the same performance gain? Which investment would you
recommend?

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