ECE 4100/6100 Advanced Computer Architecture Lecture 0 Introduction

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ECE 4100/6100 Advanced Computer Architecture
Lecture 0 Introduction

• Prof. Hsien-Hsin Sean Lee
• School of Electrical and Computer Engineering
• Georgia Institute of Technology

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Course Information

• Instructor Hsien-Hsin Sean Lee
  (leehs_at_gatech.edu)
• Office TBD
• Online resources
• www.ece.gatech.edu/leehs/ECE6100
• Constantly updated, check it out regularly
• www.tsquare.gatech.edu
• Prerequisite ECE3055 Computer Organization and
  Operating System or the equivalent.
• Textbook
• Hennessy and Patterson, Computer Architecture A
  Quantitative Approach (4th edition), Morgan
  Kaufmann, 2006.
• (Recommended) Jean-Loup Baer, Microprocessor
  Architecture --- From Simple Pipelines to Chip
  Multiprocessors. Cambridge Univ. Press, 2009.
• Other teaching materials
• Key papers available later in class meetings and
  course web
• Slides Lectures

Pre-requisite
Textbook
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Course Scope ? To Learn

• Core concept of modern microprocessor
  architecture
• ISA, performance
• Instruction-Level parallelism
• Branch prediction and Front-end fetch
• Dynamic HW Scheduling Techniques
• Memory Hierarchy
• Multiprocessors, SMT, Multi-core, Many-core
• Cache Coherence and Memory Consistency Models
• Case studies of Commercial Microprocessors
• VLIW, EPIC, Static Scheduling
• Physical design, emerging trend, technology
  integration (if time allowed)

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This course requires a lot of time commitment
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BY THE WAY

• This is not really an Advanced Computer
  Architecture class per se

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Grading

• 4 Programming Assignments 60
• Individual work, no collaboration
• TAs check-off required
• Could cause panicking, heartburn, dizziness, etc.
• Exams
• One in-class exams 15
• One final exam 25

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Stack of A Computing Problem
Problems
Algorithms
Programming Languages
Compilers
ISA
System Architecture Implementation
MicroArchitecture
Logic and Circuits
Transistors
Manufacturing
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Moores Law (a.k.a. Intels Roadmap)
42millions
Source Intel Corp.
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Feature Size
Feature size shrinks by 70 per 18 to 24 months
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Feature Size (More Recent)
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Transistor Cost
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Power Density Trend
Source Intel Corp.
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Google Server Farms (Oregon)
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Heat Dissipation
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Watch this
Click the chip
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Focus on Computer Architecture
Technology
Programming
Languages
Applications
Computer Architecture
Operating
Systems
History
(A F / M)
Virtualization
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Instruction Sets
Present
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Constantly Changing Definition

• 50s to 60s Computer Architecture Computer
  Arithmetic
• 70s to mid 80s Instruction Set Design,
  especially ISA appropriate for compilers
• 90s Speculation Predict this, predict that
  memory system I/O system Multiprocessors
  Networks
• 2000s Power efficiency , Communication, On-die
  Interconnection Network, Multi-this, Multi-that.
  (We are here)
• 2015 and beyond Thousand-core processors, Self
  adapting systems? Self organizing structures? DNA
  Systems/Quantum Computing?

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Job Description of a Computer Architect

• Used to be Performance, performance,
  performance
• Make trade-off of performance, complexity
  effectiveness, power, technology, cost, etc.
• New Fads
• Availability
• Where you store your photos, emails and shared
  docs today?
• Cloud computing
• Reliability
• Toyota blamed soft errors for the sudden
  acceleration problem
• Security
• Intel acquired McAfee
• Power management
• It is about money !

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Job Description of a Computer Architect

• Understand application requirements
• General purpose Desktop (Intel, AMD)
• Game and multimedia (STIs Cell, Nvidia, Wii,
  Xbox 360)
• Embedded and real-time (ARM, Atom, MIPS)
• Online transactional processing (OLTP), data
  warehouse servers (Sun Fire T2000 (UltraSparc
  T1), IBM POWER (p690), Google Cluster)
• Scientific (finite element analysis, protein
  folding, weather forecast, defense related (DE
  Shaw Anton, IBM BlueGene, Cray T3D/T3E, IBM SP2)
• Sometimes, there is no boundary