CS 2410 Computer Architecture
Spring 2024
Course Project
Distributed: Feb 19th, 2024
Due: 11:59pm April 22
nd, 2024
Introduction:
This is a single-person project.
You are allowed and encouraged to discuss the project with your classmates, but no sharing of
the project source code and report. Please list your discussion peers, if any, in your report
submission.
One benefit of a dynamically scheduled processor is its ability to tolerate changes in latency or
issue capability in out of order speculative processors.
The purpose of this project is to evaluate this effect of different architecture parameters on a CPU
design by simulating a modified (and simplified) version of the PowerPc 604 and 620 architectures.
We will assume a **-bit architecture that executes a subset of the RISC V ISA which consists of
the following 10 instructions: fld, fsd, add, addi, slt, fadd, fsub, fmul, fdiv, bne. See Appendix A
in the textbook for instructions’ syntax and semantics.
Your simulator should take an input file as a command line input. This input file, for example,
prog.dat, will contain a RISC V assembly language program (code segment). Each line in the input
file is a RISC V instruction from the aforementioned 10 instructions. Your simulator should read
this input file, recognize the instructions, recognize the different fields of the instructions, and
simulate their execution on the architecture described below in this handout. Your will have to
implement the functional+timing simulator.
Please read the following a-g carefully before you start constructing your simulator.
The simulated architecture is a speculative, multi-issue, out of order CPU where:
(Assuming your first instruction resides in the memory location (byte address) 0x00000hex. That
is, the address for the first instruction is 0x00000hex. PC+4 points to next instruction).
a. The fetch unit fetches up to NF=4 instructions every cycle (i.e., issue width is 4).
b. A 2-bit dynamic branch predictor (initialized to predict weakly taken(t)) with 16-entry branch
target buffer (BTB) is used. It hashes the address of a branch, L, to an entry in the BTB using bits
7-4 of L.
c. The decode unit decodes (in a separate cycle) the instructions fetched by the fetch unit and stores
the decoded instructions in an instruction queue which can hold up to NI=16 instructions.
d. Up to NW=4 instructions can be issued every clock cycle to reservation stations. The
architecture has the following functional units with the shown latencies and number of reservation
stations.
Unit Latency (cycles) for operation Reservation
stations
Instructions executing
on the unit
INT 1 (integer and logic operations) 4
add, addi,slt
Load/Store 1 for address calculation 2 load buffer +
2 store buffer
fld
fsd
FPadd 3 (pipelined FP add) 3 fadd, fsub
FPmult 4 (pipelined FP multiply) 3 fmul
FPdiv 8 (non-pipelined divide) 2 fdiv
BU 1 (condition and target evaluation) 2 bne
e. A circular reorder buffer (ROB) with NR=16 entries is used with NB=4 Common Data Busses
(CDB) connecting the WB stage and the ROB to the reservation stations and the register file. You
have to design the policy to resolve contention between the ROB and the WB stage on the CDB
busses.
f. You need to perform register renaming to eliminate the false dependences in the decode stage.
Assuming we have a total of ** physical registers (p0, p1, p2, …p31). You will need to implement
a mapping table and a free list of the physical register as we discussed in class. Also, assuming
that all of the physical registers can be used by either integer or floating point instructions.
g. A dedicated/separate ALU is used for the effective address calculation in the branch unit (BU)
and simultaneously, a special hardware is used to evaluate the branch condition. Also, a
dedicated/separate ALU is used for the effective address calculation in the load/store unit. You
will also need to implement forwarding in your simulation design.
The simulator should be parameterized so that one can experiment with different values of NF, NI,
NW, NR and NB (either through command line arguments or reading a configuration file). To
simplify the simulation, we will assume that the instruction cache line contains NF instructions
and that the entire program fits in the instruction cache (i.e., it always takes one cycle to read a
cache line). Also, the data cache (single ported) is very large so that writing or reading a word into
the data cache always takes one cycle (i.e., eliminating the cache effect in memory accesses).
Your simulation should keep statistics about the number of execution cycles, the number of times
computations has stalled because 1) the reservation stations of a given unit are occupied, 2) the
reorder buffers are full. You should also keep track of the utilization of the CDB busses. This may
help identify the bottlenecks of the architecture.
You simulation should be both functional and timing correct. For functional, we check the register
and memory contents. For timing, we check the execution cycles.
Comparative analysis:
After running the benchmarks with the parameters specified above, perform the
following analysis:
1) Study the effect of changing the issue and commit width to 2. That is setting
NW=NB=2 rather than 4.
2) Study the effect of changing the fetch/decode width. That is setting NF = 2 rather than 4.
3) Study the effect of changing the NI to 4 instead of 16.
4) Study the effect of changing the number of reorder buffer entries. That is setting NR =
4, 8, and **
You need to provide the results and analysis in your project report.
Project language:
You can ONLY choose C/C++ (highly recommended) or Python to implement your project. No
other languages.
Test benchmark
Use the following as an initial benchmark (i.e. content of the input file prog.dat).
%All the registers have the initial value of 0.
%memory content in the form of address, value.
0, 111
8, 14
16, 5
24, 10
100, 2
108, 27
116, 3
124, 8
200, 12
addi R1, R0, 24
addi R2, R0, 124
fld F2, 200(R0)
loop: fld F0, 0(R1)
fmul F0, F0, F2
fld F4, 0(R2)
fadd F0, F0, F4
fsd F0, 0(R2)
addi R1, R1, -8
addi R2, R2, -8
bne R1,$0, loop
(Note that this is just a testbench for you to verify your design. Your submission should support
ALL the instructions listed in the table and you should verify and ensure the simulation
correctness for different programs that use those nine instructions. When you submit your code,
we will use more complicated programs (with multiple branches and all instructions in the table)
to test your submission).
Project submission:
You submission will include two parts: i) code package and ii) project report
1. Code package:
a. include all the source code files with code comments.
b. have a README file 1) with the instructions to compile your source code and 2) with
a description of your command line parameters/configurations and instructions of how
to run your simulator.
2. Project report
a. A figure with detailed text to describe the module design of your code. In your report,
you also need to mark and list the key data structures used in your code.
b. The results and analysis of Comparative analysis above
c. Your discussion peers and a brief summary of your discussion if any.
Project grading:
1. We will test the timing and function of your simulator using more complicated programs
consisting of the nine RISC V instructions.
2. We will ask you later to setup a demo to test your code correctness in a **on-1 fashion.
3. We will check your code design and credits are given to code structure, module design, and
code comments.
4. We will check your report for the design details and comparative analysis.
5. Refer to syllabus for Academic Integrity violation penalties.
Note that, any violation to the course integrity and any form of cheating and copying of
codes/report from the public will be reported to the department and integrity office.
Additional Note
For those who need to access departmental linux machines for the project, here is the information
log on into the linux machines
elements.cs.pitt.edu
For example, the command: ssh <username>@ elements.cs.pitt.edu
Note that you need first connect VPN in order to use these machines.
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