Chapter 1 Part 2

Computer Abstractions
and Technology
Technology Trends
Electronics
technology
continues to evolve
Increased capacity
and performance
DRAM capacity
Reduced cost
Year Technology Relative performance/cost
1951 Vacuum tube 1
1965 Transistor 35
1975 Integrated circuit (IC) 900
1995 Very large scale IC (VLSI) 2,400,000
2005 Ultra large scale IC 6,200,000,000

Chapter 1 Computer Abstractions and Technology 2

 1.4 Performance
Defining Performance
Which airplane has the best performance?
1- Boeing 777 2- Boeing 747

3- BAC/Sud Concorde 4- Douglas DC-8-50

Chapter 1 Computer Abstractions and Technology 3

 1.4 Performance
Defining Performance
Which airplane has the best performance?

Boeing 777 Boeing 777

Boeing 747 Boeing 747

BAC/Sud BAC/Sud
Concorde Concorde
Douglas Douglas DC-
DC-8-50 8-50

0 100 200 300 400 500 0 2000 4000 6000 8000 10000

Passenger Capacity Cruising Range (miles)

Boeing 777 Boeing 777

Boeing 747 Boeing 747

BAC/Sud BAC/Sud
Concorde Concorde
Douglas Douglas DC-
DC-8-50 8-50

0 500 1000 1500 0 100000 200000 300000 400000

Cruising Speed (mph) Passengers x mph

Chapter 1 Computer Abstractions and Technology 4

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?
Well focus on response time for now

Chapter 1 Computer Abstractions and Technology 5

Relative Performance
Define Performance = 1/Execution Time
X is n times faster than Y
Performanc e X Performanc e Y
Execution time Y Execution time X n

Example: time taken to run a program

10s on A, 15s on B
Execution TimeB / Execution TimeA
= 15s / 10s = 1.5
So A is 1.5 times faster than B
Chapter 1 Computer Abstractions and Technology 6
Measuring Execution Time
Elapsed time
Total response time, including all aspects
Processing, I/O, OS overhead, idle time
Determines system performance
CPU time
Time spent processing a given job
Discounts I/O time, other jobs shares
Comprises user CPU time and system CPU
time
Different programs are affected differently by
CPU and system performance
Chapter 1 Computer Abstractions and Technology 7
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 = 2501012s
Clock frequency (rate): cycles per second
e.g., 4.0GHz = 4000MHz = 4.0109Hz
Chapter 1 Computer Abstractions and Technology 8
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 9

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 Cycles A
Clock Rate B
CPU Time B 6s
Clock Cycles A CPU Time A Clock Rate A
10s 2GHz 20 10 9
1.2 20 10 9 24 10 9
Clock Rate B 4GHz
6s 6s
Chapter 1 Computer Abstractions and Technology 10
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 11

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

B I 600ps 1.2
CPU Time
by this much
CPU Time I 500ps
A
Chapter 1 Computer Abstractions and Technology 12
 CPI in More Detail
If different instruction classes take different
numbers of cycles
n
Clock Cycles (CPIi Instructio n Count i )
i1

Weighted average CPI

Clock Cycles n
Instructio n Count i
CPI CPIi
Instructio n Count i1 Instructio n Count

Relative frequency

Chapter 1 Computer Abstractions and Technology 13

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
= 21 + 12 + 23 = 41 + 12 + 13
= 10 =9
Avg. CPI = 10/5 = 2.0 Avg. CPI = 9/6 = 1.5
Chapter 1 Computer Abstractions and Technology 14
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 15

 1.5 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 16

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
0.85 4
0.52
Cold Vold Fold
2
Pold

The power wall

We cant reduce voltage further
We cant remove more heat
How else can we improve performance?
Chapter 1 Computer Abstractions and Technology 17
 1.6 The Sea Change: The Switch to Multiprocessors
Uniprocessor Performance

Constrained by power, instruction-level parallelism,

memory latency

Chapter 1 Computer Abstractions and Technology 18

Chapter 1 Computer Abstractions and Technology 19
Chapter 1 Computer Abstractions and Technology 20
Multiprocessors
Multicore microprocessors
More than one processor per chip
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 21

 1.7 Real Stuff: The AMD Opteron X4
Manufacturing ICs

Yield: proportion of working dies per wafer

Chapter 1 Computer Abstractions and Technology 22

AMD Opteron X2 Wafer

X2: 300mm wafer, 117 chips, 90nm technology

X4: 45nm technology
Chapter 1 Computer Abstractions and Technology 23
Integrated Circuit Cost
Cost per wafer
Cost per die
Dies per wafer Yield
Dies per wafer Wafer area Die area
1
Yield
(1 (Defects per area Die area/2)) 2

Nonlinear relation to area and defect rate

Wafer cost and area are fixed
Defect rate determined by manufacturing process
Die area determined by architecture and circuit design

Chapter 1 Computer Abstractions and Technology 24

 1.8 Fallacies and Pitfalls
Pitfall: Amdahls Law
Improving an aspect of a computer and
expecting a proportional improvement in
overall performance
Taffected
Timproved Tunaffected
improvemen t factor
Example: multiply accounts for 80s/100s
How much improvement in multiply performance to
get 5 overall?
80 Cant be done!
20 20
n
Corollary: make the common case fast
Chapter 1 Computer Abstractions and Technology 25
Fallacy: Low Power at Idle
X4 power benchmark
At 100% load: 295W
At 50% load: 246W (83%)
At 10% load: 180W (61%)
Google data center
Mostly operates at 10% 50% load
At 100% load less than 1% of the time
Consider designing processors to make
power proportional to load

Chapter 1 Computer Abstractions and Technology 26

 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 27