Computer Architecture 22200/32200 Homework #2
Due April 20

  1. (32200 only, 20 points) Readings In Computer Architecture
    Which design principles espoused by Wulf are consistent with the RISC design philosophy of Patterson and Ditzel and which are not? Justify your answer.

  2. (32200 only, 20 points) Readings In Computer Architecture (32200 only)
    Explain how register windows on the SPARC work. How many registers are available for passing parameters and what evidence suggests that this is a reasonable design choice? (10 points)

    Explain Colwell et al.'s claim that the performance reports for machines with register windows "shed little light on the RISC-related performance of the machine." (10 points)

  3. (22200/32200, 100 points) Questions from H&P book
    2.4b,c,d (50 points), 2.5 (50 points)

  4. (22200/32200, 20 points) Use sim-profile from the Simplescalar tool set to report the instruction mix for the programs in our test suite.

  5. (22200/32200, 30 points) The simplescalar PISA ISA supports an index addressing mode (register plus register). How many instructions (both static and dynamic) does the addition of this mode save for each program in our test suite?

  6. (22200/32200, 50 points) Question from H&P book (22200/32200)
    Do 2.20 from H&P, but modify sim-profile and use programs from the test suite to collect the requested data.

  7. (22200/32200, 60 points) Modify sim-profile to allow four additional compare and branch instructions (blt, ble, bgt, bge). Each instruction should take two register operands and a target and branch to the target if the condition is true. Modify the programs loopwithoutif, loopwithif, array1, array2, and search in ts.tar.gz to use the new instructions. For each program, turn in the modified assembly file and report the number of (dynamic) instructions saved by this change. (Hint: use the annote scheme provided by simple scalar to synthesize the new instructions from BEQ.) See ss.html for a stripped-down version of the Simplescalar distribution for use in this assignment.
amr@cs.unchicago.edu April 2004