CS462 Computer Architecture and Design

Weber/Spring, 2012

Announcements

• Stay tuned to my weekly schedule for office hours during Finals Week.
  
• The last homework assignment has been posted below.
• The due date for the final project has been extended to Tuesday, May 1 at 4 pm.
  

Old announcements

• My office hour on Wednesday, April 18 will be from 3 to 4 pm, instead of its usual time (2 to 3 pm).
• Extra office hours for CS 462 students:  Tuesday, Apr 17, 9-10 am and 4:30-5:30 pm; Wednesday, Apr 18 from 8-10 am.
  
• Answer keys for the problems from chapter 4 and appendix C can be found on weberklinuxfac in the folder /home/weberk/cs462s2012shared.
• Here are the problems you should work on to prepare for the test over appendix C (sections 1-5, 7 and 8) and Chapter 4 (sections 1-6): 
  
• Do the Check Yourself problems in all the covered sections first.  These have answers given at the very end of the appendix.  Then work on the individual problems listed below.
  
• Appendix C:  problems C11, C12, C 18-20, C35 and C36.
• Chapter 4: problems 4.1, 4.4, 4.9 (except 4.9.6), 4.11, 4.12 (except 4.12.6), 4.13, 4.16.  For all these problems, where you are supposed to work with values from a table, always choose option a.
  
• Attendance at Presentation Session I (all of it)  in T & H 100 at 10 am on Scholar Day (Apr 17)  is worth 5 test points extra credit.  Be sure to check in with me at the session.
  
• The PowerPoint slides for chapter 4 are available on weberklinuxfac at /home/weberk/cs462s2012shared/chapter 4 the processor.ppt.
• Read sections 1-6 of Chapter 4.
  
• Test 2, covering Appendix C and material covered in Chapter 4, will be on April 18.
• Here is a sample test to help you prepare for Test 1 on Wednesday.  Note that, although the sample questions dealing with chapter 2 material have been copied directly from the sample quiz, different questions from chapter 2 from what appeared on the actual quiz and what appeared on the sample are not only possible, but highly likely.
  
• The project specifications are now posted below.
  
• Read appendix C.
  
• The PowerPoint slides for chapter 3 are available on weberklinuxfac at /home/weberk/cs462s2012shared/chapter 3 arithmetic for computers.ppt.
  
• The final exam will be replaced with a final project, as per class consensus. The syllabus has been modified to reflect the change.  Stay tuned for project details.
  
• Test 1 will be on Wednesday, March 21.  It will cover chapters 1-3.
• You should be reading chapter 3 now.  We will be working next in Appendix C, which is on the CD.
  
• Office hour on Thursday, March 1, will be moved from 1-2 pm to 3-4 pm.
• Class for Wednesday, Feb. 22 is cancelled.  Please use the time to work on the bubblesort.s exercise due next Wednesday.  Also do problems 3.3.1 a b, 3.3.2 a b, and 3.3.3 a b to make sure you understand addition, and 3.4.1 a, to get a start on multiplication.
  
• Office hour on Thursday, Feb 23 will be moved from 1-2 pm to 3-4 pm.
  
• Start reading chapter 3.
• Friday’s quiz will cover sections 2.1 through 2.10 of the textbook, excluding the material on pp. 111-112 that covers the case/switch statement.
• Please attend the Timken night on Monday, Feb 13.
  
• A 3" x 5" card of notes will be allowed on the quiz.  In addition, I will provide a copy of the MIPS/SPIM reference card.
  
• A quiz over chapter 2 will be given on Friday, Feb. 10.  See the sample quiz.
  
• The PowerPoint slides for chapter 2 are available on weberklinuxfac at /home/weberk/cs462s2012shared/chapter\ 2\ instructions\ language\ of\ the\ computer.ppt.
  
• Read chapter 2
  
• Read chapter 1

Assignments

Due April 18

Write a Verilog module that implements the 1-bit ALU diagrammed in Figure C.5.6 on p. C-29 of the textbook (on CD).  Create an ISE project that includes this module and a testbench module that will test the design on all inputs that make sense.  Name the project cs462a4your_last_name, so that you can hand it in by just copying it to //recluse/shared$/CSIS/WEBERK/Handin/CS462.

Due Feb 29

Modify bubblesort.s (you can find it in the folder M:\CSIS\WEBERK\Handout\cs462s2012\Bubblesort) so that it will read in up to 100000 integers, sort them, and print them out in order.  Also, "inline" the swap method and remove the code for swap completely.  Try to make the sort method as efficient as possible when you inline swap.

Due Feb 3 Feb 6

Write a MIPS program that can be executed in SPIM that reads in a sequence of (signed) integers, until either a 0 or a 1 is encountered.  If 0, the program should print the sum of the numbers, and if 1, the program should print the product.

Due Jan 25

Work in pairs to translate the C++ program sum2.cpp into MIPS assembler, making sure that it executes properly in QtSPIM.  Send me the assembly program by attaching the file to an email message to me.  Send me just one file for the team, but make sure that the assembly program is documented at the top with a description of the program, the due date, and the team members.

Examples

Resources

• Open this file in a web browser for directions on getting a remote desktop to weberklinuxfac from a Windows computer in the CSIS lab:  M:\CSIS\WEBERK\Handout\weberklinuxfacRemoteDesktopDirections.html.  If you open it in Internet Explorer, you can click on the links to the programs and they will actually execute.
• Textbook Website  (We may not be accessing this site much.  One thing that will be useful is a list of corrections of errors in the textbook, which is called Errata, is there.)

Project

All projects are based on the binary gcd algorithm.

Form a team of two members.  Choose one of the following three projects; there can be at most two teams working on the same project.

•  Use Verilog to specify the functional design of a combinational circuit that will take two 4-bit unsigned odd integers as input and produce their greatest common divisor as output.  Use the Xilinx ISE to implement and test the design.
• Write a MIPS assembly routine that implements the binary gcd algorithm for 32-bit inputs.  Also write a main method that reads two unsigned integers from the console and writes the gcd to the console.  Test the implementation with SPIM.
• Write a test program that calls the iterative C routine provided in the Wikipedia entry for the binary gcd algorithm, which reads two unsigned integers from standard input and writes the result to standard output.  Compile and test this program on weberklinuxfac.  Then generate the x86_64 assembly translation of the gcd function (use the -O2 optimization level) and hand-optimize it.  Name the new function gcd_as and assemble and link it with the test program to debug it.  Then write two programs that can be used to call the two versions of the gcd function repeatedly so that the speed of the two implementations can be compared.  Remember that the time command in Linux/Unix can be used to time a program.

Teams and projects are to be decided by Monday, March 26.  Anyone not in a team with a project by that time will be grouped into teams by me and given a project by my choice.  Email me the members' names and the choice of project.  Projects will be awarded on a first come, first served, basis.  Remember, there can be at most two teams working on the same project.

The final projects are to be turned in  via email by 11 am on Friday, April 27  4 pm on Tuesday, May 1.  Archive all pertinent files into a zip or tar archive and attach the archive to the email.