Computer Organization

unit 1 : Overview
 1.1 Overview
Why study computer organization and design?
 Designbetter programs, including system software such as
compilers, operating systems, and device drivers.
 Optimize program behavior.
 Evaluate (benchmark) computer system performance.
 Understand time, space, and price tradeoffs.
 1.1 Overview
• Computer organization
– physical aspects of computer systems.
– E.g., circuit design, control signals, memory types.
– How does a computer work?
• Computer architecture
– Logical aspects of system as seen by the programmer.
– E.g., instruction sets, instruction formats, data types,
addressing modes.
– How do I design a computer?
 Computer Architecture
Computer Organization
• Attributes of a system visible to the • Instruction set, number of
programmer bits used to represent
• Have a direct impact on the logical various data types, I/O
execution of a program mechanisms , and
techniques for addressing
Architectural memory
Computer
attributes
Architecture
include:

Organizationa Computer
• Hardware details transparent to thel attributes Organization • The operational units
programmer, control signals, include: and their
interfaces between the computer interconnections that
and peripherals, memory realize the architectural
technology used specifications
 1.2 Computer Components

• At the most basic level, a computer is a

device consisting of three pieces:

– A processor to interpret and execute

programs
– A memory to store both data and
programs
– A mechanism for transferring data to
and from the outside world.
 There are four main components of the computer:

 CPU – controls the operation of the

computer and performs its data
processing functions

 Main Memory – stores data

 I/O – moves data between the
computer and its external environment

 System Interconnection – some

mechanism that provides for
communication among CPU, main
memory, and I/O
 CPU
 ControlUnit
 Controls the operation of the CPU and hence the computer

 Arithmeticand Logic Unit (ALU)

 Performs the computer’s data processing function

 Registers
 Provide storage internal to the CPU

 CPU Interconnection
 Some mechanism that provides for communication among
the control unit, ALU, and registers
 1.3 The Computer Level Hierarchy

 Each virtual machine layer is an

abstraction of the level below it.
 The machines at each level execute
their own particular instructions,
calling upon machines at lower
levels to perform tasks as required.
 Computer circuits ultimately carry
out the work.
 1.3 The Computer Level Hierarchy
• Level 6: The User Level
– Program execution and user interface level.
– The level with which we are most familiar.
• Level 5: High-Level Language Level
– The level with which we interact when we write
programs in languages such as C, Pascal, Lisp, and Java.
 1.3 The Computer Level Hierarchy
• Level 4: Assembly Language Level
– Acts upon assembly language produced from Level 5, as
well as instructions programmed directly at this level.
• Level 3: System Software Level
– Controls executing processes on the system.
– Protects system resources.
– Assembly language instructions often pass through Level
3 without modification.
 1.3 The Computer Level Hierarchy

• Level 2: Machine Level

– Also known as the Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) Level.
– Consists of instructions that are particular to the architecture
of the machine.
– Programs written in machine language need no compilers,
interpreters, or assemblers.
 1.3 The Computer Level Hierarchy
• Level 1: Control Level
– A control unit decodes and executes instructions and
moves data through the system.
– Control units can be microprogrammed or hardwired.
– A microprogram is a program written in a low-level
language that is implemented by the hardware.
– Hardwired control units consist of hardware that directly
executes machine instructions.
 1.3 The Computer Level Hierarchy
• Level 0: Digital Logic Level
– This level is where we find digital circuits (the chips).
– Digital circuits consist of gates and wires.
– These components implement the mathematical logic
of all other levels.
 1.4 The von Neumann Model

• The invention of stored program computers has been

ascribed to a mathematician, John von Neumann, who
was a contemporary of Mauchley and Eckert.
• Stored-program computers have become known as von
Neumann Architecture systems.
 1.4 The von Neumann Model
• Today’s stored-program computers have the following
characteristics:
– Three hardware systems:
• A central processing unit (CPU)
• A main memory system
• An I/O system
– The capacity to carry out sequential instruction processing.
– A single data path between the CPU and main memory.
• This single path is known as the von Neumann bottleneck.
 1.4 The von Neumann Model

 This is a general depiction of a

von Neumann system:

 These computers employ a

fetch-decode-execute cycle to
run programs as follows . . .
 1.4 The von Neumann Model
• The control unit fetches the next instruction from memory using the
program counter to determine where the instruction is located.
 1.4 The von Neumann Model
• The instruction is decoded into a language that the ALU can understand.
 1.4 The von Neumann Model

• Any data operands required to execute the instruction are fetched

from memory and placed into registers within the CPU.
 1.4 The von Neumann Model

• The ALU executes the instruction and places results in registers or

memory.
 1.5 Non-von Neumann Models
• Conventional stored-program computers have undergone
many incremental improvements over the years.
• These improvements include adding specialized buses,
floating-point units, and cache memories, to name only a
few.
• But enormous improvements in computational power
require departure from the classic von Neumann
architecture.
• Adding processors is one approach.
 1.5 Non-von Neumann Models
• In the late 1960s, high-performance computer systems
were equipped with dual processors to increase
computational throughput.
• In the 1970s supercomputer systems were introduced with
32 processors.
• Supercomputers with 1,000 processors were built in the
1980s.
• In 1999, IBM announced its Blue Gene system containing
over 1 million processors.
 1.5 Non-von Neumann Models
• Parallel processing is only one method of providing
increased computational power.
• DNA computers, quantum computers, and dataflow
systems. At this point, it is unclear whether any of
these systems will provide the basis for the next
generation of computers.
 Eight Great Ideas in Computer Architecture
•Design for Moore’s Law
•Use Abstraction to Simplify Design
•Make the Common Case Fast
•Performance via Parallelism
•Performance via Pipelining
•Performance via Prediction
•Hierarchy of Memories
•Dependability via Redundancy
 Design for Moore’s Law
• Moore’s Law- states that integrated circuit resources double
every 18–24 months.
• Moore’s Law resulted from a 1965 prediction of such growth
in IC capacity mad by Gordon Moore, one of the founders of
Intel.
• As computer designs can take years, the resources available
per chip can easily double or quadruple between the start
and finish of the project.
•Like a skeet shooter, computer architects must anticipate
where the technology will be when the design finishes rather
than design for where it starts.
•We use an “up and to the right” Moore’s Law graph to
represent designing rapid change.
 Use Abstraction to Simplify Design
•Both computer architects and programmers had to invent
techniques to make themselves more productive, for otherwise
design time would lengthen as dramatically as resources grew by
Moore’s Law.
•A major productivity technique for hardware and software is to
use abstractions to represent the design at different
levels of representation; lower-level details are hidden to offer a
simpler model at higher levels.
•We’ll use the abstract painting icon to represent this second
great idea.
 Make the Common Case Fast
•Making the common case fast will tend to enhance
performance better than
optimizing the rare case.
• Ironically, the common case is often simpler than the
rare case and hence is often easier to enhance.
•This common sense advice implies
that you know what the common case is, which is only
possible with careful experimentation and measurement
.
Performance via Parallelism
• Since the dawn of computing, computer
architects have offered designs that get
more performance by performing operations in
parallel.
•We use multiple jet engines of a plane as our
icon for parallel performance.
.
Performance via Pipelining
• Performance via Pipelining
A particular pattern of parallelism is so prevalent
in computer architecture that it merits its own
name: pipelining.

.
Performance via Prediction
• Performance via Prediction
Following the saying that it can be better to ask for
forgiveness than to ask for permission, the final great
idea is prediction.
•In some cases it can be faster on average to guess and
start working rather than wait until you know for sure,
assuming that the mechanism to recover from a
misprediction is not too expensive
and your prediction is relatively accurate.

.
Hierarchy of Memories
• Programmers want memory to be fast, large, and
cheap, as memory speed often shapes performance,
capacity limits the size of problems that can be solved,
and the cost of f memory today is often the majority of
computer cost.
•Architects have found that they can address these
conflicting demands with a hierarchy of memories, with
the fastest, smallest, and most expensive memory per
bit at the top of the hierarchy
and the slowest, largest, and cheapest per bit at the
bottom.

.
Dependability via Redundancy
• Dependability via Redundancy
Computers not only need to be fast; they need to
be dependable. Since any physical
device can fail, we make systems dependable by
including redundant components that
can take over when a failure occurs and to help
detect failures.