18-548/15-548 Fall 1998

Homework 9:
Disks &
Vector Architecture

Due November 11, 1998

Draft until November 4


Problem 1:

Awaiting a problem from Erik...


Problem 2. Vector Architecture

A particular vector computer design has the characteristics & assumptions given below. Some of the assumptions such as ignoring bank conflicts are made to make the problem easier and are obviously not realistic.

Latency Clock ticks of latency
Vector instruction dispatch 1
VAG setup 1
Address reaches memory bank 3
DRAM read latency (ignore time to complete cycle) 4
Data returns from memory bank after access via bus 3
VDS delay 1
Adder delay (starting when both operands available) 4
VDS delay 1
Result sent to memory bank via bus (address & data) 3
Data written in to DRAM (ignore time to complete cycle) 4

A 4-element vector addition takes 4 clock cycles to issue ("vload", "vload", "vadd", "vstore"). What is the elapsed time for a 4-element vector addition in clock ticks? Provide a spreadsheet printout or other table diagram illustrating how you got this solution (similar to the spreadsheets in lecture 16, but using columns and latencies appropriate to the table above).


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