ADVANCED COMPUTER ARCHITECTURE Syllabus

CSE-401 E

Unit1: architecture and machines: some definition and terms, interpretation and microprogramming. The instruction set, basic data types, instructions, addressing and memory. Virtual to real mapping. Basic instruction timing.

Unit2: time, area and instruction sets: time, cost-area, technology state of the art, the economics of a processor project: A study, instruction sets, professor evaluation matrix

Unit-3: cache memory notion: basic notion, cache organization, cache data, adjusting the data for cache organization, write policies, strategies for line replacement at miss time, cache environment, other types of cache. Split I and d-caches, on chip caches, two level caches, write assembly cache, cache references per instruction, technology dependent cache considerations, virtual to real translation, overlapping the Tcycle in V-R translation, studies. Design summary.

Unit4: memory system design: the physical memory, models of simple processor memory interaction, processor memory modeling using queuing theory, open, closed and mixed-queue models, waiting time, performance, and buffer size, review and selection of queueing models, processors with cache.

Unit5: concurrent processors: vector processors, vector memory, multiple issue machines, comparing vector and multiple issue processors.

Shared memory multiprocessors: basic issues, partitioning, synchronization and coherency, type of shared memory multiprocessors, memory coherence in shared memory multiprocessors.

Text book: Advance computer architecture by Hwang & Briggs, 1993, TMH Computer Architecture by Michael J. Flynn

Computer Architecture & Organization Computer Architecture: Those attributes of a system which are visible to a machine language programmer having direct impact on logical execution of a program. These attributes include Instruction set, word size, no of bits used to represent various data types, techniques of addressing memory etc. In simple words, it is instruction set together with major implementation details. Implementation: mechanism that executes or interprets the instruction, so it is separate from architecture. Instruction Sets define the many different kinds of data and their manipulations by different processors. Computer Organization: The operational units and their inter connections that realize the architecture. Control signals , Memory Technology, Interfaces between computer and peripherals etc. Example: It is an Architectural design issue whether a computer will have Multiply Instruction. It is an Organizational issue whether this will be implemented using a separate Multiply Unit or whether it will be implemented using repetitive add function. Major Computer manufacturers offer a family of computer models based on same architecture but with different organization IBM System 370 architecture introduced in 1970 has survived to this day as the architecture of IBM mainframe product line. Various implementation of RISC architecture are available in the market like SUN Spark, Power PC etc. Instruction set consists of Core of frequently used instructions, suspended instructions saved for reasons of compatibility.

Basic Functions of a Computer The basic functions that a computer can perform are

Data Processing Data Movement Data Storage Control Basic Components of a Computer The basic components of a computer are CPU Controls the operation of computers and performs its data processing functions. Main Memory Storage of Data I/O Subsystem Data Movement betn. Computer and its external environment. System Interconnection Some mechanism that provides for communication between all the above units.