COMPUTER ORGANIZATION AND DESIGN

RISC-V
2 ed. nd

The Hardware/Software Interface

Chapter 1
Computer Abstractions
and Technology
Learning Outcomes
Upon completion of this chapter, students
will be able to:
1. describe Hardware , System Software, and
Application software components of a computer
2. describe High-level languages, Assembly
languages, and Machine languages
3. identify which ones are Operating systems, or
Compilers, or Assemblers
4. evaluate a computer’s performance based on its
clock rate and CPI

Chapter 1 — Computer Abstractions and Technology — 2

 §1.1 Introduction
The Computer Revolution
 Progress in computer technology
 Underpinned by domain-specific accelerators
 Makes novel applications feasible
 Computers in automobiles
 Cell phones
 Human genome project
 World Wide Web
 Search Engines
 Computers are pervasive
Chapter 1 — Computer Abstractions and Technology — 3
Classes of Computers
 Personal computers
 General purpose, variety of software
 Subject to cost/performance tradeoff

 Server computers
 Network based
 High capacity, performance, reliability
 Range from small servers to building sized

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Classes of Computers
 Supercomputers
 Type of server
 High-end scientific and engineering
calculations
 Highest capability but represent a small
fraction of the overall computer market

 Embedded computers
 Hidden as components of systems
 Stringent power/performance/cost constraints

Chapter 1 — Computer Abstractions and Technology — 5

The PostPC Era

Chapter 1 — Computer Abstractions and Technology — 6

The PostPC Era
 Personal Mobile Device (PMD)
 Battery operated
 Connects to the Internet
 Hundreds of dollars
 Smart phones, tablets, electronic glasses
 Cloud computing
 Warehouse Scale Computers (WSC)
 Software as a Service (SaaS)
 Portion of software run on a PMD and a
portion run in the Cloud
 Amazon and Google
Chapter 1 — Computer Abstractions and Technology — 7
What You Will Learn
 How programs are translated into the
machine language
 And how the hardware executes them
 The hardware/software interface
 What determines program performance
 And how it can be improved
 How hardware designers improve
performance
 What is parallel processing
Chapter 1 — Computer Abstractions and Technology — 8
Understanding Performance
 Algorithm
 Determines number of operations executed
 Programming language, compiler, architecture
 Determine number of machine instructions executed
per operation
 Processor and memory system
 Determine how fast instructions are executed
 I/O system (including OS)
 Determines how fast I/O operations are executed

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 §1.2 Seven Great Ideas in Computer Architecture
Seven Great Ideas
 Use abstraction to simplify design
 Make the common case fast
 Performance via parallelism
 Performance via pipelining
 Performance via prediction
 Hierarchy of memories
 Dependability via redundancy

Chapter 1 — Computer Abstractions and Technology — 10

 §1.3 Below Your Program
Below Your Program
 Application software
 Written in high-level language
 System software
 Compiler: translates HLL code to
machine code
 Operating System: service code
 Handling input/output
 Managing memory and storage
 Scheduling tasks & sharing resources
 Hardware
 Processor, memory, I/O controllers

Chapter 1 — Computer Abstractions and Technology — 11

Levels of Program Code
 High-level language
 Level of abstraction closer
to problem domain
 Provides for productivity
and portability
 Assembly language
 Textual representation of
instructions
 Hardware representation
 Binary digits (bits)
 Encoded instructions and
data

Chapter 1 — Computer Abstractions and Technology — 12

 §1.4 Under the Covers
Components of a Computer
The BIG Picture
 Same components for
all kinds of computer
 Desktop, server,
embedded
 Input/output includes
 User-interface devices
 Display, keyboard, mouse
 Storage devices
 Hard disk, CD/DVD, flash
 Network adapters
 For communicating with
other computers

Chapter 1 — Computer Abstractions and Technology — 13

Touchscreen
 PostPC device
 Supersedes keyboard
and mouse
 Resistive and
Capacitive types
 Most tablets, smart
phones use capacitive
 Capacitive allows
multiple touches
simultaneously

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Through the Looking Glass
 LCD screen: picture elements (pixels)
 Mirrors content of frame buffer memory

Chapter 1 — Computer Abstractions and Technology — 15

Opening the Box

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Inside the Processor (CPU)
 Datapath: performs operations on data
 Control: sequences datapath, memory, ...
 Cache memory
 Small fast SRAM memory for immediate
access to data

Chapter 1 — Computer Abstractions and Technology — 17

Inside the Processor
 A12 processor

Chapter 1 — Computer Abstractions and Technology — 18

Abstractions
The BIG Picture
 Abstraction helps us deal with complexity
 Hide lower-level detail
 Instruction set architecture (ISA)
 The hardware/software interface
 Application binary interface
 The ISA plus system software interface
 Implementation
 The details underlying and interface
Chapter 1 — Computer Abstractions and Technology — 19
A Safe Place for Data
 Volatile main memory
 Loses instructions and data when power off
 Non-volatile secondary memory
 Magnetic disk
 Flash memory
 Optical disk (CDROM, DVD)

Chapter 1 — Computer Abstractions and Technology — 20

Networks
 Communication, resource sharing,
nonlocal access
 Local area network (LAN): Ethernet
 Wide area network (WAN): the Internet
 Wireless network: WiFi, Bluetooth

Chapter 1 — Computer Abstractions and Technology — 21

 §1.5 Technologies for Building Processors and Memory
Technology Trends
 Electronics
technology
continues to evolve
 Increased capacity
and performance
 Reduced cost
DRAM capacity

Year Technology Relative performance/cost

1951 Vacuum tube 1
1965 Transistor 35
1975 Integrated circuit (IC) 900
1995 Very large scale IC (VLSI) 2,400,000
2013 Ultra large scale IC 250,000,000,000

Chapter 1 — Computer Abstractions and Technology — 22

Semiconductor Technology
 Silicon: semiconductor
 Add materials to transform properties:
 Conductors
 Insulators
 Switch

Chapter 1 — Computer Abstractions and Technology — 23

Manufacturing ICs

 Yield: proportion of working dies per wafer

Chapter 1 — Computer Abstractions and Technology — 24

Intel® Core 10th Gen

 300mm wafer, 506 chips, 10nm technology

 Each chip is 11.4 x 10.7 mm
Chapter 1 — Computer Abstractions and Technology — 25
Integrated Circuit Cost
Cost per wafer
Cost per die 
Dies per wafer  Yield
Dies per wafer  Wafer area Die area
1
Yield 
(1 (Defects per area  Die area/2)) 2

 Nonlinear relation to area and defect rate

 Wafer cost and area are fixed
 Defect rate determined by manufacturing process
 Die area determined by architecture and circuit design

Chapter 1 — Computer Abstractions and Technology — 26

 §1.6 Performance
Defining Performance
 Which airplane has the best performance?

Chapter 1 — Computer Abstractions and Technology — 27

Response Time and Throughput
 Response time
 How long it takes to do a task
 Throughput
 Total work done per unit time
 e.g., tasks/transactions/… per hour
 How are response time and throughput affected
by
 Replacing the processor with a faster version?
 Adding more processors?
 We’ll focus on response time for now…

Chapter 1 — Computer Abstractions and Technology — 28

Relative Performance
 Define Performance = 1/Execution Time
 “X is n time faster than Y”
Performanc e X Performanc e Y
 Execution time Y Execution time X  n
 Example: time taken to run a program
 10s on A, 15s on B
 Execution TimeB / Execution TimeA
= 15s / 10s = 1.5
 So A is 1.5 times faster than B
Chapter 1 — Computer Abstractions and Technology — 29
Measuring Execution Time
 Elapsed time
 Total response time, including all aspects
 Processing, I/O, OS overhead, idle time
 Determines system performance
 CPU time
 Time spent processing a given job
 Discounts I/O time, other jobs’ shares
 Comprises user CPU time and system CPU
time
 Different programs are affected differently by
CPU and system performance
Chapter 1 — Computer Abstractions and Technology — 30
CPU Clocking
 Operation of digital hardware governed by a
constant-rate clock
Clock period

Clock (cycles)

Data transfer
and computation
Update state

 Clock period: duration of a clock cycle

 e.g., 250ps = 0.25ns = 250×10–12s
 Clock frequency (rate): cycles per second
 e.g., 4.0GHz = 4000MHz = 4.0×109Hz
Chapter 1 — Computer Abstractions and Technology — 31
CPU Time
CPU Time  CPU Clock Cycles  Clock Cycle Time
CPU Clock Cycles

Clock Rate
 Performance improved by
 Reducing number of clock cycles
 Increasing clock rate
 Hardware designer must often trade off clock
rate against cycle count

Chapter 1 — Computer Abstractions and Technology — 32

CPU Time Example
 Computer A: 2GHz clock, 10s CPU time
 Designing Computer B
 Aim for 6s CPU time
 Can do faster clock, but causes 1.2 × clock cycles
 How fast must Computer B clock be?
Clock CyclesB 1.2  Clock CyclesA
Clock RateB  
CPU Time B 6s
Clock CyclesA  CPU Time A  Clock Rate A
 10s  2GHz  20  10 9
1.2  20  10 9 24  10 9
Clock RateB    4GHz
6s 6s
Chapter 1 — Computer Abstractions and Technology — 33
Instruction Count and CPI
Clock Cycles  Instructio n Count  Cycles per Instructio n
CPU Time  Instructio n Count  CPI  Clock Cycle Time
Instructio n Count  CPI

Clock Rate
 Instruction Count for a program
 Determined by program, ISA and compiler
 Average cycles per instruction
 Determined by CPU hardware
 If different instructions have different CPI
 Average CPI affected by instruction mix

Chapter 1 — Computer Abstractions and Technology — 34

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  Instruction Count  CPI  Cycle Time
A A A
 I  2.0  250ps  I  500ps A is faster…
CPU Time  Instruction Count  CPI  Cycle Time
B B B
 I  1.2  500ps  I  600ps
CPU Time
B  I  600ps  1.2
…by this much
CPU Time I  500ps
A
Chapter 1 — Computer Abstractions and Technology — 35
 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
 Instructio n Count i 
CPI     CPIi  
Instructio n Count i1  Instructio n Count 

Relative frequency

Chapter 1 — Computer Abstractions and Technology — 36

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 = 2.0  Avg. CPI = 9/6 = 1.5
Chapter 1 — Computer Abstractions and Technology — 37
Performance Summary
The BIG Picture

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, T c

Chapter 1 — Computer Abstractions and Technology — 38

 §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 — 39

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
 2
 0.85 4
 0.52
Pold Cold  Vold  Fold
 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 — 40
 §1.8 The Sea Change: The Switch to Multiprocessors
Uniprocessor Performance

Constrained by power, instruction-level parallelism,

memory latency

Chapter 1 — Computer Abstractions and Technology — 41

Multiprocessors
 Multicore microprocessors
 More than one processor per chip
 Requires explicitly parallel programming
 Compare with instruction level parallelism
 Hardware executes multiple instructions at once
 Hidden from the programmer
 Hard to do
 Programming for performance
 Load balancing
 Optimizing communication and synchronization

Chapter 1 — Computer Abstractions and Technology — 42

SPEC CPU Benchmark
 Programs used to measure performance
 Supposedly typical of actual workload
 Standard Performance Evaluation Corp (SPEC)
 Develops benchmarks for CPU, I/O, Web, …
 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

Chapter 1 — Computer Abstractions and Technology — 43

SPECspeed 2017 Integer benchmarks on a
1.8 GHz Intel Xeon E5-2650L

Chapter 1 — Computer Abstractions and Technology — 44

SPEC Power Benchmark
 Power consumption of server at different
workload levels
 Performance: ssj_ops/sec
 Power: Watts (Joules/sec)

 10   10 
Overall ssj_ops per Watt    ssj_opsi    poweri 
 i0   i0 

Chapter 1 — Computer Abstractions and Technology — 45

SPECpower_ssj2008 for Xeon E5-2650L

Chapter 1 — Computer Abstractions and Technology — 46

 §1.11 Fallacies and Pitfalls
Pitfall: Amdahl’s Law
 Improving an aspect of a computer and
expecting a proportional improvement in
overall performance
Taffected
Timproved   Tunaffected
improvemen t factor
 Example: multiply accounts for 80s/100s
 How much improvement in multiply performance to
get 5× overall?
80  Can’t be done!
20   20
n
 Corollary: make the common case fast
Chapter 1 — Computer Abstractions and Technology — 47
Fallacy: Low Power at Idle
 Look back at i7 power benchmark
 At 100% load: 258W
 At 50% load: 170W (66%)
 At 10% load: 121W (47%)
 Google data center
 Mostly operates at 10% – 50% load
 At 100% load less than 1% of the time
 Consider designing processors to make
power proportional to load

Chapter 1 — Computer Abstractions and Technology — 48

Pitfall: MIPS as a Performance Metric
 MIPS: Millions of Instructions Per Second
 Doesn’t account for
 Differences in ISAs between computers
 Differences in complexity between instructions

Instruction count
MIPS 
Execution time  10 6
Instruction count Clock rate
 
Instruction count  CPI CPI  10 6
 10 6

Clock rate
 CPI varies between programs on a given CPU
Chapter 1 — Computer Abstractions and Technology — 49
 §1.12 Concluding Remarks
Concluding Remarks
 Cost/performance is improving
 Due to underlying technology development
 Hierarchical layers of abstraction
 In both hardware and software
 Instruction set architecture
 The hardware/software interface
 Execution time: the best performance
measure
 Power is a limiting factor
 Use parallelism to improve performance
Chapter 1 — Computer Abstractions and Technology — 50