Midterm Review

1
Midterm Review

• Prof. Mike Schulte
• Advanced Computer Architecture
• ECE 401

2
Midterm Review

• Material Covered
• Chapters 1-3 of textbook
• Associated homework problems
• Associated lecture notes
• Associated research articles
• Format
• Open everything (notes, books, papers,
  calculator)
• 2 hours (235 to 435) to complete
• 5 to 10 questions (multiple parts)
• Similar to previous midterm, but no Chapter 4
• see course web page under Examinations

3
Fundamentals of Computer Design

• Important material from Chapter 1 includes
• Trends in computer usage
• Trends in technology
• Computer costs and price
• Computer performance and execution time
• Ahmdahls law
• Benchmarks
• Computer performance equation
• CPU Time IC CPI Clock Cycle Time
• Poor performance metrics (MFLOPS, MIPS)
• Research articles
• The Microprocessor Today
• Coming Challenges in Microarchitecture and
  Architecture

4
Instruction Set Design

• Important material from Chapter 2 includes
• ISA classifications (accumulator, stack, GPR)
• Memory addressing
• Operations
• Operand specifiers
• Instruction set formats
• Compilers and ISA
• DLX architecture
• x86 architecture
• Research articles
• MMX Technology Architecture Overivew
• Introducing the IA-64 Architecture
• Altivec Extension to PowerPC Accelerates Media
  Processing

5
Pipelining

• Important material from Chapter 3 includes
• Basic issues in pipelining (stages, throughput,
  latency)
• Multiple-cycle and pipelined DLX
• Pipeline performance
• Pipeline hazards (structural, data, control)
• Coping with hazards (stalls, bypassing, branch
  prediction)
• Dealing with exceptions and difficult instruction
  sets
• Floating point pipelines
• MIPS R4000 Pipeline
• Research articles
• A Study of Branch Prediction Strategies
• Instruction Issue Logic for High-Performance
  Interruptable Pipelined Processors