The University of Texas at Dallas

EE6304 Computer Architecture

Tutorial 2: Computer Metrics
Q1. Rewrite the following CISC-style program fragment so that it executes correctly on a
RISC (load-store) processor. Assume as many registers as needed.
ADD r3, (r1), (r3)
SUB r4, r3, (r5)
MUL (r6), r7, r4
Q2. The average CPI (cycles per instruction) can be calculated by using the following three
steps:
(1). Obtain CPI for each individual instruction (ADD, SUB, AND, etc.);
(2). Calculate frequency of each individual instruction;
(3). Multiply these two for each instruction and add them up to get the average CPI.
A program has a statistics shown in the following table:
Operation
ALU
Load
Store
Branch

Frequency
50%
20%
10%
20%

CPI
1
5
3
2

Product

(% Time)

(a) Complete the table and calculate the average CPI for running this program.
(b) What if Branch instructions are twice as fast? (complete a new table and discuss the
differences)
Q3. A Program is running on a specific machine with the following parameters:
Total instruction count: 10,000,000 instructions
Average CPI for the program: 2.5 cycles/instruction.
CPU clock rate: 1 GHz.
Using the same program with these changes:
A new compiler used: new instruction count 9,500,000
New CPI: 3.0
Faster CPU implementation: new clock rate = 1.5 GHZ
What is the speedup with the changes?

Q4. Calculate the die cost of an Integrated circuit (IC) if each 200 mm wafer costs 10,000
USD, the die area is 50 mm2, the wafer yield is 0.9 and the defects per unit area are
0.2cm-2 (consider = 4)
What is the cost if the die size could be reduced by 10%? 20%? Plot the die size vs. cost
in a graph.

Q5. Given the following instant power profile, calculate the energy, peak and average
power from 0 to 10 ms.
Power (mW)
10
5
0
0

9 10 11 12 13 14

Time (ms)