Computer Architecture

Trần Trọng Hiếu

Information Systems Department
Faculty of Information Technology
VNU - UET
hieutt@vnu.edu.vn

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 Introduction

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The Computer Revolution
⚫ Makes novel applications feasible
⚫ Computers in automobiles
⚫ Cell phones
⚫ World Wide Web
⚫ Search Engines
⚫ Computers are pervasive

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Classes of Computers
⚫ Desktop computers/ Handheld devices
⚫ 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
⚫ Embedded computers
⚫ Hidden as components of systems
⚫ Stringent power/performance/cost constraints
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Components of a Computer
⚫ 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
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Anatomy of a Computer

Output
device

Network
cable

Input Input
device device

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Opening the Box

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The Processor
⚫ AMD Barcelona: 4 processor cores

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RAM (Random Access
Memory)

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A Safe Place for Data
⚫ Volatile main memory
⚫ Loses instructions and data when power off
⚫ Non-volatile secondary memory
⚫ Magnetic disk
⚫ Flash memory
⚫ Optical disk (CDROM, DVD)

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 Memory Hierarchy Levels
Capacity
Access Time Staging
Cost Xfer Unit
CPU Registers
Registers Upper Level
100s Bytes
300 – 500 ps (0.3-0.5 ns) prog./compiler
Instr. Operands 1-8 bytes faster
L1 and L2 Cache L1 Cache
10s-100s K Bytes cache cntl
~1 ns - ~10 ns Blocks 32-64 bytes
$1000s/ GByte
L2 Cache
cache cntl
Main Memory Blocks 64-128 bytes
G Bytes
80ns- 200ns Memory
~ $100/ GByte
OS
Pages 4K-8K bytes
Disk
10s T Bytes, 10 ms
(10,000,000 ns)
Disk
~ $1 / GByte user/operator
Files Mbytes
Larger
Tape
infinite Tape Lower Level
sec-min
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~$1 / GByte
Networks
⚫ Communication and resource sharing
⚫ Local area network (LAN): Ethernet
⚫ Within a building
⚫ Wide area network (WAN: the Internet
⚫ Wireless network: WiFi, Bluetooth

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Inside structure

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Abstractions
⚫ Abstraction helps us deal with complexity
⚫ Hide lower-level detail
⚫ Instruction set architecture (ISA)
⚫ The hardware/software interface
⚫ Application binary interface
⚫ The ISA plus system software interface
⚫ Implementation
⚫ The details underlying and interface

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What is Computer Architecture?
Easy Answer
Computer Architecture =
Instruction Set Architecture +
Machine Organization

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 The Instruction Set:
a Critical Interface

software

instruction set

hardware

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Instruction Set Architecture

⚫ A very important abstraction:

⚫ interface between hardware and low-level software
⚫ standardizes instructions, machine language bit patterns, etc.
⚫ advantage: allows different implementations of the same
architecture
⚫ disadvantage: sometimes prevents adding new innovations

⚫ Modern instruction set architectures:

⚫ 80x86/Pentium/K6, PowerPC, DEC Alpha, MIPS, SPARC, HP

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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

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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
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Levels of Program Code High-level
language
swap(int v[], int k)
{int temp;
program temp = v[k];
(in C) v[k] = v[k+1];

⚫ High-level language }
v[k+1] = temp;

⚫ Level of abstraction closer to

problem domain C compiler

⚫ Provides for productivity and

portability Assembly swap:
language muli $2, $5,4

⚫ Assembly language program

(for MIPS)
add $2, $4,$2
lw $15, 0($2)
lw $16, 4($2)
⚫ Textual representation of sw $16, 0($2)
sw $15, 4($2)
instructions jr $31

⚫ Hardware representation
⚫ Binary digits (bits) Assembler

⚫ Encoded instructions and data

Binary machine 00000000101000010000000000011000
language 00000000100011100001100000100001
program 10001100011000100000000000000000
(for MIPS) 10001100111100100000000000000100
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10101100111100100000000000000000
10101100011000100000000000000100
00000011111000000000000000001000
Quiz?
⚫ How can computers play audio files?
⚫ How can they understand characters?

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