Computer Architecture

• Instructor: Jim Huang (黃敬群) <jserv.tw@gmail.com>
• Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/system.software2022/
• Policy
  • Follow the classes: CS 61C at UC Berkeley, CS152/252: Computer Architecture
• Course grading
  • Quiz (30%), Homework (30%), Final/Term Project (40%)
• Schedule is tentative and subject to change!

Computer Architecture (Fall 2022)

• Week 1 (Sep 6): Introduction / Online via YouTube
  • Course Introduction
  • David Patterson: A New Golden Age for Computer Architecture: History, Challenges and Opportunities / video
    • Article, note
  • David Patterson: From Mainframe CPUs to Neural-Network TPUs and Open RISC-V / video
  • Great Ideas in Computer Architecture, Intro / video
  • Number Representation / video
  • Floating Point / video
  • C Memory Management / video
• Week 2 (Sep 13): Quiz + RISC-V / Online via YouTube
  • Quiz1: C programming, bit-wise operations, number representation, floating-point / Solution
  • Lab0: Web-based Emulators
  • RISC-V Instructions
    • The RISC-V Instruction Set Manual: Volume I: Unprivileged ISA
  • Intro to Assembly Language and RISC-V / video
• Week 3 (Sep 20): RISC-V / Online via YouTube
  • Intro to Assembly Language and RISC-V / video
    • RISC-V Assembly Programmer’s Manual
  • RISC-V Data Transfer / video
  • RISC-V Decision Making
  • Functions Calls with RISC-V / video
  • Lab1: RV32I Simulator
  • Assignment: Homework1: RISC-V Assembly and Instruction Pipeline (Due: Oct 10, 2022)
• Week 4 (Sep 27): RISC-V / Online via YouTube
  • Announcement:
    • Next quiz is scheduled to Oct 4
    • Code Review for Homework 1 on Oct 4
  • NASA, Microchip, SiFive Announces Partnership for RISC-V Spaceflight Computing Platform
  • ST, CAES team on octacore RISC-V space chip with selectable cores
  • Apple M1 Pro/Max
    • ARM1 (1985) vs. Apple M1 Max (2021)
    • Apple Announces M1 Pro & M1 Max: Giant New Arm SoCs with All-Out Performance / Apple M2
  • Calling Convention for RISC-V / video
  • CALL = Compiling, Assembling, Linking, and Loading / video
  • 2021-Quiz2 / solution
• Week 5 (Oct 4): Quiz + Code Review (Room 4201 (1F) at (old) CSIE Building)
  • Quiz2: RISC-V assembly and C programming / solution
  • Code Review on Homework1: RISC-V Assembly and Instruction Pipeline
• Week 6 (Oct 11): RISC-V Instruction Format + GNU Toolchain / Online via YouTube
  • Next week: digital logic
  • Further reading FPGA design for Software Engineers
  • Lab2: RISC-V RV32I[MACF] emulator with ELF support
  • Assignment: Homework2: RISC-V Toolchain (Due: Oct 31)
  • RISC-V Instruction Formats Part I / Part II / video
• Week 7 (Oct 18): Digital Systems / Online via YouTube
  • Announcement: New quiz is scheduled on Oct 25
  • Binary marble adding machine / video
    • Yes, you can implement a few logic-like elements without electricity.
    • Logic gates are primarily implemented using diodes or transistors acting as electronic switches, but can also be constructed using vacuum tubes, electromagnetic relays (relay logic), fluidic logic, pneumatic logic, optics, molecules, or even mechanical elements. Now, most logic gates are made from MOSFETs (metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistors).
  • nand2tetris
  • Synchronous Digital Systems (SDS), Boolean Algebra / video
    • sequential logic is a type of logic circuit whose output depends on the present value of its input signals and on the sequence of past inputs, the input history.
  • State, Combinational Logic / video
  • 2020-Quiz3 / solution
  • 2021-Quiz3 / solution
  • 2021-Quiz4 / solution
• Week 8 (Oct 25): Datapath and Control + Code Review (Room 4201 (1F) at (old) CSIE Building)
  • Quiz3: RISC-V programming and instruction encoding + Digital systems / solution
  • RISC-V CPU Datapath / video
• Week 9 (Nov 1): Pipeline / Online via YouTube
  • video: Are Computers Still Getting Faster?
  • video: Circuits recap
  • RISC-V CPU Datapath / video
    • slides
  • Single-Cycle CPU Control / video
    • slides
  • MIT 6.191 L15: Introduction to Pipelining, L16: Processor Pipelining
    • note
• Week 10 (Nov 8): Pipelined Processors
  • Announcement:
    • Next quiz is scheduled to Nov 15
    • Homework3: SoftCPU is out.
    • Next week, we will review all the assignments.
  • Recent rv32emu changes
    • More descriptions about system calls. See docs/syscall.md
    • Implement clock_gettime system call, so that you can call gettimeofday/clock_gettime in C programs.
    • Implement user-level counters for getting CPU cycle counts in RISC-V programs. See tests/perfcounter for sample usage.
    • Better experiences while running Doom and Quake games. You can resize the window and use mouse properly.
    • More test programs: jit-bf (JIT assembler for RISC-V), coro (a simple coroutine implementation for RISC-V), mandelbrot (an ASCII-based renderer for Mandelbrot Set, colorized), richards (an operating system task scheduler simulation benchmark), and chacha20 (stream cipher)
    • More comments in source files.
  • 0 to ASIC
  • L16: Processor Pipelining, L17: Implementing Pipelining, L18: Implementing Pipelined Processors / note
  • RISC-V 5-Stage Pipeline / Hazards / video
  • Lab3: srv32 - RISCV RV32IM Soft CPU
  • Assignment: Homework3: SoftCPU (Due: Nov 30, 2022)
  • 2020 Quiz4 / solution
  • 2021 Quiz5 / solution / annotated with Riples
• Week 11 (Nov 15): Quiz + Homework Review
  • Quiz4: RISC-V programming + datapath + control + pipelined processor / solution
  • Homework1, Homework2
  • Complex Pipelines, Out-of-Order Issue, Register Renaming
• Week 12 (Nov 22): Cache + Virtual Memory
  • Announcement: Quiz on Nov 29 - pipeline, cache and virtual memory
  • Caches: Direct-mapped, set-associative / video
  • Multi-level Caches, Cache Questions / video
  • The golden age of ever-changing computer architecture
    • Cerebras announced a system which connects multiple integrated circuits (commonly called “chips”) into a neural network with many connections in Aug 2021. It enables a single system to support AI models with more than 120 trillion parameters.
  • Virtual Memory / video
    • UCB: Virtual Memory / video
  • 2020-Quiz5 / solution
• Week13 (Nov 29): Quiz + Virtual Memory + Operating System
  • Announcement:
    • Be aware of term projects.
    • Next week, we will review all the assignments.
  • Quiz6: pipelined processor + cache + virtual memory / solution
  • Virtual Memory / video
  • Lab4: Cache
    • Reference work
  • Operating Systems / video
  • Term projects 2020
• Week14 (Dec 6): Synchronization
  • Announcement:
    • Quiz on Dec 20
    • Check the listing of final/term projects
  • Term projects 2021
  • Synchronization / video
  • Thread-Level Parallelism / video
    • Let’s skip OpenMP part
• Week15 (Dec 13): Operating System and RISC-V, cache coherence
  • Announcement:
    • Quiz7 on Dec 20
    • Check the listing of final/term projects
  • video: The Future of Operating Systems on RISC-V / transcript
  • Multithreading Issues, Cache Coherency / video
    • Let’s skip OpenMP part
  • Freestanding RISC-V Programs
    • bare metal
  • Multithreaded Application Synchronization Part I
    • Taken from CSCI 463: Computer Architecture and Systems Organization
    • RISC-V spec references the word ‘hart’ - what does ‘hart’ mean?
  • Multithreaded Application Synchronization Part II
    • RISC-V AMOSWAP instruction
  • Advanced topics on Synchronization - 1
  • Advanced topics on Synchronization - 2
  • 2020 Quiz6
    • solution
• Week16 (Dec 20): I/O
  • Quiz7 / solution
  • I/O: Devices, Polling, Interrupts / video
    • Traps/Interrupts/Exceptions
    • Trap Handling in 5-Stage Pipeline
• Week17 (Dec 27): Modern Processors
  • listing of final/term projects
  • Modern Processor Architecture / video
  • Introduction to Dynamic Branch Prediction, Advanced Branch Prediction, Tournament Predictors and Branch Prediction Accuracy
  • Project: Analyze and improve srv32
  • Hardware Based Speculation
• Week 18 (Jan 2): Modern Processors