Advanced Computer Architecture (Fall 2019)

ECE6100/ECE4100/CS4290/CS6290 B

Fall 2019

Course Overview

This course is a study of the evolution of computer architecture and the factors influencing the design of hardware and software elements of computer systems. Topics may include: instruction set design; processor micro-architecture and pipelining; cache and virtual memory organizations; protection and sharing; I/O and interrupts; in-order and out-of-order superscalar architectures; VLIW machines; vector supercomputers; multithreaded architectures; symmetric multiprocessors; memory models and synchronization; embedded systems; and parallel computers.

Course Staff

Instructor	Professor Tushar Krishna
Email	tushar@ece.gatech.edu
Office	KACB 2318
Office Hours	Tue & Thu 4:30 – 5 pm [Klaus 2447 after class]
Office Hours	By Appointment

Teaching Assistants	Abhinav Himanshu	Priya Roshan
Email	ahimanshu3@gatech.edu	priya77darshini@gatech.edu
Office Hours & Location	Fri 12:30 – 1:30 pm	Wed 10:00 – 11:00 am
Office Hours & Location	Ping Pong Area Next to KACB 2332	Ping Pong Area Next to KACB 2332

Course Information

Lectures
Hours	Tue & Thu 3:00 – 4:15 pm
Room	Klaus 2447

Recitations
Hours	Mon 6 – 7 pm
Room	Klaus 1443

Piazza

We will be using Piazza for class discussion. The system is highly catered to getting you help fast and efficiently from classmates, the TAs, and myself. Rather than emailing questions to the teaching staff, I encourage you to post your questions on Piazza.

Find our class page at:

piazza.com/gatech/fall2019/ece61004100_cs62904290b/home

Course Material

There is no required textbook for this course, but we strongly recommend Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach by John Hennessy and David Patterson, 5th Edition, Morgan Kauffman, 2012.

Selected readings from the book will be listed for each lecture in the course schedule.

Grading

Lab 1	5%
Lab 2	10%
Lab 3	10%
Lab 4	10%
HW 1	2%
HW 2	2%
Participation	1%
Midterm 1	20%
Midterm 2	20%
Final	20%

Calendar

Schedule

Week	Date	Lecture	Background Readings	Due Dates
1	Aug 20 (Tu)	L01: Introduction
1	Aug 22 (Th)	L02: History	H&P Ch1: p2-61, IBM 360	Lab 1 (Aug 23 Fri @1pm)
2	Aug 27 (Tu)	L03: Single Cycle MIPS Implementation	H&P App A: p2-32
2	Aug 29 (Th)	L04: Simple Pipeline & Hazards	H&P App C: p2-25
3	Sep 3 (Tu)	L05: Branch Prediction	H&P App C: p26-29, Ch3: p162-167, 203-208 S. Mcfarling, “Combining Branch Predictors,” WRL Technical Note TN-36 1993. Kessler, “The Alpha 21264 Microprocessor,” IEEE Micro 1999. E. Sprangle et al, “The Agree Predictor: A Mechanism for Reducing Negative Branch History Interference“, ISCA 1997. D. Jimenez and C. Lin, “Dynamic Branch Prediction with Perceptrons,” HPCA 2001. A. Seznec and P. Michaud. “A case for (partially)-tagged geometric history length predictors“. Journal of Instruction Level Parallelism 2006.
3	Sep 5 (Th)	L06: Branch Prediction + Superscalar Pipelines	Patel et al., “Critical Issues Regarding the Trace Cache Fetch Mechanism,” UMich TR 1997.
4	Sep 10 (Tu)	L07: OoO Execution I : Hazards and Register Renaming	H&P Ch 3: 167-170
4	Sep 12 (Th)	L08: OoO Execution II: Tomasulo’s Algorithm	H&P Ch3: 170-183	Lab 2A (Sep 13 Fri @ 11:55pm)
5	Sep 17 (Tu)	L09: OoO Execution III: Reorder Buffer Speculative Execution	H&P Ch3: 183-192, 197-201
5	Sep 19 (Th)	L10:OoO Execution IV: LSQ		Lab 2B (Sep 20 Fri @ 11:55pm)
6	Sep 24 (Tu)	L11: Multithreading + VLIW	MT: H&P Ch3: 223-247 Tullsen et al., “Exploiting Choice: Instruction Fetch and Issue on an Implementable Simultaneous Multithreading Processor,” ISCA 1996 VLIW: Ch3: 193-197 + App H	HW1 (Sep 22 Sun @ 11:55pm)
6	Sep 26 (Th)	Midterm I
7	Oct 1 (Tu)	L12: Caches I	H&P App B: p2-40, Ch2: 72-96 M. Qureshi & Y. N. Patt, “Utility-Based Cache Partitioning: A Low-Overhead, High-Performance, Runtime Mechanism to Partition Shared Caches,” MICRO 2006 D. Sanchez & C. Kozyrakis, “The ZCache: Decoupling Ways and Associativity,” MICRO 2010
7	Oct 3 (Th)	L13: Caches II
8	Oct 8 (Tu)	L14: Virtual Memory	Ch 2: p105-131; App B: p40-60
8	Oct 10 (Th)	L15: Multiprocessors	Ch5: p344-351, 400-405, App I	Lab 3 Part A (Oct 11 @ 11:55 pm)
9	Oct 15 (Tu)	Fall Break
9	Oct 17 (Th)	L16: DRAM
10	Oct 22 (Tu)	L17: Networks-on-Chip I	H& P App F Topology J. Kim, D. Abts, & W. J. Dally, “Flattened Butterfly: A Cost-Efficient Topology for High-Radix Networks,” ISCA 2007 Routing D. Seo, A. Ali, W-T Lim, N. Rafique, M. Thottethodi, “Near-Optimal Worst-case Throughput Routing for Two-Dimensional Mesh Networks”, ISCA 2005. Flow Control/Router Microarchitecture C. A. Nicopoulos, D. Park, J. Kim, N. Vijaykrishnan, M. S. Yousif, C. R. Das, “ViChaR: A Dynamic Virtual Channel Regulator for Network-on-Chip Routers” MICRO 2006 T. Moscriboda & O. Mutlu, “A Case for Bufferless Routing in On-Chip Networks,” ISCA 2009 A. Kumar, L-S. Peh, P. Kundu, & N. K. Jha, “Towards Ideal On-Chip Communication Using Express Virtual Channels,” IEEE Micro Top Picks of Architecture Conferences 2008. T. Krishna, C-H Chen, W-C. Kwon, L-S Peh, “Breaking the On-Chip Latency Barrier Using SMART,” HPCA 2013 NoC Prototypes from Industry J. Howard et al., “A 48-Core IA-32 Message-Passing Processor with DVFS in 45nm CMOS,” ISSCC 2010 [Intel] D. Wentzlaff et al, “On-Chip Interconnection Architecture of the Tile Processor,” IEEE Micro 2007 [Tilera]
10	Oct 24 (Th)	L18: Networks-on-Chip II		Lab 3 Part B+C (Oct 25 @ 11:55 pm)
11	Oct 29 (Tu)	L20: Networks-on-Chip III		HW2 (Oct 27 Sun @ 11:55pm)
11	Oct 31 (Th)	Midterm II
12	Nov 5 (Tu)	L20: Cache Coherence I	Coherence: H&P Ch5: p351-386 N. Agarwal, L-S. Peh, and N. K. Jha, “In-Network Snoop Ordering: Snoopy Coherence on Unordered Interconnects,” HPCA 2009 D. Vantrease, M. H. Lipasti, and N. Binkert, “Atomic Coherence: Leveraging Nanophotonics to Build Race-Free Cache Coherence Protocols,” HPCA 2011 Cache Management (Private vs Shared) C. Kim, D. Burger, and S. W. Keckler, “An Adaptive, Non-Uniform Cache Structure for Wire-Delay dominated On-Chip Caches,” ASPLOS 2002 J. Chang and G. S. Sohi, “Cooperative Caching for Chip Multiprocessors,” ISCA 2006 N. Hardavellas, M. Ferdman, B. Falsafi, and A, Ailamaki, “Reactive NUCA: Near-Optimal Block Placement and Replication in Distributed Caches”, ISCA 2009 G. Kurian, S. Devadas, and O. Khan, “Locality-Aware Data Replication in the Last-Level Cache,” HPCA 2014 B. M. Beckmann and David A. Wood, “Transmission Line Caches,” MICRO 2003 W-C Kwon, T. Krishna and L-S. Peh, “Locality-Oblivious Cache Organization leveraging Single-Cycle Multi-Hop NoCs,” ASPLOS 2014
12	Nov 7 (Th)	L21: Cache Coherence II
13	Nov 12 (Tu)	L22: Cache Coherence III
13	Nov 14 (Th)	L23: Cache Coherence IV
14	Nov 19 (Tu)	L24: Cache Coherence V
14	Nov 21 (Th)			Lab 4 Part A+B+C (Nov 22 @ 11:55 pm)
15	Nov 26 (Tu)	L25: Memory Consistency	H&P Ch5: p392-400
15	Nov 28 (Th)	Thanksgiving
16	Dec 3 (Tu)	L27: Future Trends		Lab 4 Part D+(E+F) (Dec 3 @ 11:55 pm)
17	Dec 10 (Tu)	Final

Honor Code:

Students are expected to abide by the Georgia Tech Academic Honor Code. Honest and ethical behavior is expected at all times. All incidents of suspected dishonesty will be reported to and handled by the office of student affairs. You will have to do all assignments individually unless explicitly told otherwise. You may discuss with classmates but you may not copy any solution (or any part of a solution).