COMPUTER

ARCHITECTURE AND
OPERATING SYSTEMS
(CS31702)
 Syllabus
• Architecture: 
– Basic organization,
– fetch-decode-execute cycle,
– data path and control path,
– instruction set architecture,
– I/O subsystems, interrupts, memory hierarchy, overview of
pipelined architecture.
• Operating systems: 
– An overview,
– process management,
– user and supervisor modes,
– process synchronization, semaphores,
– memory management, virtual memory,
– file systems, I/O systems.
 Books
Computer Architecture:
• David A. Patterson and John L. Hennessy, Computer
Organization and Design: The Hardware/Software Interface,
Elsevier.
• Carl Hamachar, Zvonco Vranesic and Safwat Zaky,
Computer Organization, McGraw-Hill.
• John P. Hayes, Computer Architecture and Organization,
McGraw-Hill.
Operating System:
• Avi Silberschatz, Peter Galvin, Greg Gagne, Operating
System Concepts, Wiley Asia Student Edition.
• William Stallings, Operating Systems: Internals and Design
Principles, Prentice Hall of India.
COMPUTER ORGANIZATION AND DESIGN
5
Edition
th

The Hardware/Software Interface

Chapter 1
Computer Abstractions and
Technology
 §1.1 Introduction
The Computer Revolution
 Progress in computer technology
 Underpinned by Moore’s Law – 2x integration
density every 18 months
 Makes novel applications feasible
 Computers in automobiles
 Cell phones
 Human genome project
 World Wide Web
 Search Engines
 Computers are pervasive
Chapter 1 — Computer Abstractions and Technology — 5
Classes of Computers
 Personal computers
 General purpose, variety of software
 Subject to cost/performance tradeoff

 Server computers
 Network based
 High capacity, performance, reliability
 Range from small servers to building sized

Chapter 1 — Computer Abstractions and Technology — 6

Classes of Computers
 Supercomputers
 High-end scientific and engineering
calculations
 Highest capability but represent a small
fraction of the overall computer market

 Embedded computers
 Hidden as components of systems
 Stringent power/performance/cost constraints

Chapter 1 — Computer Abstractions and Technology — 7

The PostPC Era

Chapter 1 — Computer Abstractions and Technology — 8

The PostPC Era
 Personal Mobile Device (PMD)
 Battery operated
 Connects to the Internet
 Hundreds of dollars
 Smart phones, tablets, electronic glasses
 Cloud computing
 Warehouse Scale Computers (WSC)
 Software as a Service (SaaS)
 Portion of software run on a PMD and a
portion run in the Cloud
 Amazon and Google
Chapter 1 — Computer Abstractions and Technology — 9
What You Will Learn
 How programs are translated into the
machine language
 And how the hardware executes them
 The hardware/software interface
 What determines program performance
 And how it can be improved
 How hardware designers improve
performance
 What is parallel processing

Chapter 1 — Computer Abstractions and Technology — 10

What Affects Performance?
 Algorithm
 Determines number of operations executed
 Programming language, compiler, architecture
 Determine number of machine instructions executed
per operation
 Processor and memory system
 Determine how fast instructions are executed
 I/O system (including OS)
 Determines how fast I/O operations are executed

Chapter 1 — Computer Abstractions and Technology — 11

 §1.2 Eight Great Ideas in Computer Architecture
Eight Great Ideas
 Design for Moore’s Law
 Use abstraction to simplify design
 Make the common case fast
 Performance via parallelism
 Performance via pipelining
 Performance via prediction
 Hierarchy of memories
 Dependability via redundancy

Chapter 1 — Computer Abstractions and Technology — 12

 §1.3 Below Your Program
Below Your Program
 Application software
 Written in high-level language
 System software
 Compiler: translates HLL code to
machine code
 Operating System: service code

Handling input/output

Managing memory and storage
 Scheduling tasks & sharing resources
 Hardware
 Processor, memory, I/O controllers

Chapter 1 — Computer Abstractions and Technology — 13

Levels of Program Code
 High-level language
 Level of abstraction closer
to problem domain
 Provides for productivity
and portability
 Assembly language
 Textual representation of
instructions
 Hardware representation
 Binary digits (bits)
 Encoded instructions and
data

Chapter 1 — Computer Abstractions and Technology — 14

 §1.4 Under the Covers
Components of a Computer
The BIG Picture
 Same components for
all kinds of computer
 Desktop, server,
embedded
 Input/output includes
 User-interface devices

Display, keyboard, mouse
 Storage devices

Hard disk, CD/DVD, flash
 Network adapters

For communicating with
other computers

Chapter 1 — Computer Abstractions and Technology — 15

Opening the Box
Capacitive multitouch LCD screen

3.8 V, 25 Watt-hour battery

Computer board

Chapter 1 — Computer Abstractions and Technology — 16

Inside the Processor (CPU)
 Datapath: performs operations on data
 Control: sequences datapath, memory, ...
 Cache memory
 Small fast SRAM memory for immediate
access to data

Chapter 1 — Computer Abstractions and Technology — 17

CPU Clocking
 Operation of digital hardware governed by a
constant-rate clock
Clock period

Clock (cycles)

Data transfer
and computation
Update state

 Clock period: duration of a clock cycle

 e.g., 250ps = 0.25ns = 250×10–12s
 Clock frequency (rate): cycles per second
 e.g., 4.0GHz = 4000MHz = 4.0×109Hz
Chapter 1 — Computer Abstractions and Technology — 18
CPU Time
CPU Time CPU Clock CyclesClock Cycle Time
CPU Clock Cycles

Clock Rate
 Performance improved by
 Reducing number of clock cycles
 Increasing clock rate
 Hardware designer must often trade off clock
rate against cycle count

Chapter 1 — Computer Abstractions and Technology — 19

CPU Time Example
 Computer A: 2GHz clock, 10s CPU time
 Designing Computer B
 Aim for 6s CPU time
 Can do faster clock, but causes 1.2 × clock cycles
 How fast must Computer B clock be?
Clock CyclesB 1.2 Clock CyclesA
Clock RateB  
CPU Time B 6s
Clock CyclesA CPU Time A Clock Rate A
10s 2GHz 20 10 9
1.2 20 10 9 24 109
Clock RateB   4GHz
6s 6s
Chapter 1 — Computer Abstractions and Technology — 20
Instruction Count and CPI
Clock Cycles Instructio n Count Cycles per Instructio n
CPU Time Instructio n Count CPI Clock Cycle Time
Instructio n Count CPI

Clock Rate
 Instruction Count for a program
 Determined by program, ISA and compiler
 Average cycles per instruction
 Determined by CPU hardware
 If different instructions have different CPI
 Average CPI affected by instruction mix

Chapter 1 — Computer Abstractions and Technology — 21

CPI Example
 Computer A: Cycle Time = 250ps, CPI = 2.0
 Computer B: Cycle Time = 500ps, CPI = 1.2
 Same ISA
 Which is faster, and by how much?
CPU Time Instructio n Count CPI Cycle Time
A A A
I 2.0 250ps I 500ps A is faster…
CPU Time Instructio n Count CPI Cycle Time
B B B
I 1.2 500ps I 600ps
CPU Time
B I 600ps 1.2
…by this much
CPU Time I 500ps
A
Chapter 1 — Computer Abstractions and Technology — 22
 CPI in More Detail
 If different instruction classes take different
numbers of cycles
n
Clock Cycles  (CPIi Instructio n Counti )
i 1

 Weighted average CPI

n
Clock Cycles  Instructio n Counti 
CPI    CPIi  
Instructio n Count i1  Instructio n Count 

Relative frequency

Chapter 1 — Computer Abstractions and Technology — 23

CPI Example
 Alternative compiled code sequences using
instructions in classes A, B, C
Class A B C
CPI for class 1 2 3
IC in sequence 1 2 1 2
IC in sequence 2 4 1 1

 Sequence 1: IC = 5  Sequence 2: IC = 6
 Clock Cycles  Clock Cycles
= 2×1 + 1×2 + 2×3 = 4×1 + 1×2 + 1×3
= 10 =9
 Avg. CPI = 10/5 = 2.0  Avg. CPI = 9/6 = 1.5
Chapter 1 — Computer Abstractions and Technology — 24
Performance Summary
The BIG Picture

Instructio ns Clock cycles Seconds

CPU Time   
Program Instructio n Clock cycle

 Performance depends on
 Algorithm: affects IC, possibly CPI
 Programming language: affects IC, CPI
 Compiler: affects IC, CPI
 Instruction set architecture: affects IC, CPI, Tc

Chapter 1 — Computer Abstractions and Technology — 25

Response Time and Throughput
 Response time
 How long it takes to do a task
 Throughput
 Total work done per unit time

e.g., tasks/transactions/… per hour
 How are response time and throughput affected
by
 Replacing the processor with a faster version?
 Adding more processors?
 We’ll study their estimation now

Chapter 1 — Computer Abstractions and Technology — 26

 §1.7 The Power Wall
Power Trends

 In CMOS IC technology
Power Capacitive load Voltage 2 Frequency

×30 5V → 1V ×1000

Chapter 1 — Computer Abstractions and Technology — 27

Reducing Power
 Suppose a new CPU has
 85% of capacitive load of old CPU
 15% voltage and 15% frequency reduction
Pnew Cold 0.85 (Vold 0.85) 2 Fold 0.85 4
 2
0.85 0.52
Pold Cold Vold Fold
 The power wall
 We can’t reduce voltage further
 We can’t remove more heat
 How else can we improve performance?
Chapter 1 — Computer Abstractions and Technology — 28
Multiprocessors
 Multicore microprocessors
 More than one processor per chip
 Clock frequency limited
 Requires explicitly parallel programming
 Compare with instruction level parallelism
 Hardware executes multiple instructions at once
 Hidden from the programmer
 Hard to do
 Programming for performance
 Load balancing
 Optimizing communication and synchronization
Chapter 1 — Computer Abstractions and Technology — 29
 §1.9 Concluding Remarks
Concluding Remarks
 Cost/performance is improving
 Due to underlying technology development
 Hierarchical layers of abstraction
 In both hardware and software
 Instruction set architecture
 The hardware/software interface
 Execution time: the best performance
measure
 Power is a limiting factor
 Use parallelism to improve performance

Chapter 1 — Computer Abstractions and Technology — 30