EE 4720 Lecture Notes

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                              EE 4720_Computer Architecture


       Call Number 6081


       URL: http://www.ee.lsu.edu/koppel/ee4720


       Offered by:


               David M. Koppelman


               349 EE Building


               388-5482, koppel@ee.lsu.edu, http://www.ee.lsu.edu/koppel


               Tentative office hours:  Monday, Thursday 14:00-16:30.



       Should already know:
               How to design a computer.


       Will learn:
               How to design a good computer.



01-1                      EE 4720 Lecture Transparency. Formatted 10:39, 13 January 1997 from lsli0*
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01-2 * * 01-2 Prerequisites By Course: EE 3755, Computer Organization. (Current name.) EE 4730, Structure and design of digital computers. (Old name.) Prerequisites By Topic: - Logic design. - Computer organization. - Assembly-language programming. Text "Computer architecture, a quantitative approach," John L. Hennessy & David A. Patterson, Second Edition. Course Content - Importance of instruction set architecture (ISA). - Using cost and performance to guide design. - Instruction set design. - Pipelining. - Instruction-level parallelism. - Memory hierarchy. Course content will closely follow text. Lecture material not in book will be marked: (NIB). 01-2 EE 4720 Lecture Transparency. Formatted 10:39, 13 January 1997 from lsli0* *1. 01-2
01-3 * * 01-3 Graded Material Midterm Exam, 35% Fifty minutes, closed book. Final Exam, 35% Two hours, closed book. Homework, 30% Lowest grade or unsubmitted assignment dropped. Will not have to run programs to complete homework. 01-3 EE 4720 Lecture Transparency. Formatted 10:39, 13 January 1997 from lsli0* *1. 01-3
01-4 * * 01-4 ISA and Implementation Distinction What is a computer? A machine that executes instructions which read and write memory. What a computer engineer does: - Develops an instruction set architecture (ISA). - Designs hardware to execute the instruction set. Definitions Instruction Set Architecture (ISA): Precise definition of computer's instructions and their effects. - It's all programmer needs to program machine. - It's all hardware designer needs to design machine. Implementation [of an ISA] (noun): Hardware that executes instructions defined by ISA. 01-4 EE 4720 Lecture Transparency. Formatted 10:39, 13 January 1997 from lsli0* *1. 01-4
01-5 * * 01-5 Instruction Set Architecture ISA and Implementation Examples ISA: SPARC V8. (Developed by Sun for its workstations.) Impl: Cypress CY7C601 and Fujitsu MB86900/1A. Who ISA Developed For - Compiler writers. - Compute-intensive library writers. E.g., graphics and scientific libraries. Instruction set requirements don't change very much over time. An ISA may leave some behavior unspecified. Reasons: - Future instructions. - Implementation-specific instructions. - Unintended. 01-5 EE 4720 Lecture Transparency. Formatted 10:39, 13 January 1997 from lsli0* *1. 01-5
01-6 * * 01-6 Implementation Two aspects of implementation: organization and hardware. Definitions Organization: Details of functional units, data paths, control, etc. Also called microarchitecture. (NIB1 ). This includes memory system, bus, and CPU. Hardware: Logic design and packaging. Course focus: ISA and organization, not hardware. _______________________________ 1 Not in book. 01-6 EE 4720 Lecture Transparency. Formatted 10:39, 13 January 1997 from lsli0* *1. 01-6
01-7 * * 01-7 Technological Change Technological Change and Computer Designer Technology determines "raw materials" for designer. ISA lifetime can be decades. Raw materials greatly change over this time. So, design ISA for now and future. How technological advancement affects processor. Transistor Speed, Clock Rate No changes to organization or ISA. Number of Transistors Available Changes to organization and possible changes to ISA. Memory Size Change ISA to use larger address space. Can use ISA having larger instruction codings. Memory Speed Compared to Processor Speed Include more sophisticated caching in organization. 01-7 EE 4720 Lecture Transparency. Formatted 10:39, 13 January 1997 from lsli0* *1. 01-7
01-8 * * 01-8 Summary What a computer engineer does: - Develops an instruction set (ISA). - Designs hardware to execute instruction set. If instruction set poorly designed: : : : : :many instructions will not be used (wasting silicon): : : : : :and instructions will execute slowly. Why ISA design is surprisingly difficult: - Hard to predict which instructions useful: : : : : :without writing and running software using instructions. - Hard to predict which instructions fast: : : : : :in current and future technologies. 01-8 EE 4720 Lecture Transparency. Formatted 10:39, 13 January 1997 from lsli0* *1. 01-8

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David M. Koppelman - koppel@ee.lsu.edu
Modified 14 Jan 1997 12:18 (18:18 UTC)