Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

The University of Texas at Austin

EE 360N, Fall 2005
Problem Set 2
Due: 3 October 2005, before class
Yale N. Patt, Instructor
Aater Suleman, Linda Bigelow, Jose Joao, Veynu Narasiman, TAs

Instructions:
You are encouraged to work on the problem set in groups and turn in one problem set for the entire group. Remember to put all your names on the solution sheet. Also remember to put the name of the TA in whose discussion section you would like the problem set returned to you.

  1. The following program computes the square (k*k) of a positive integer k, stored in location 0x4000 and stores the result in location 0x4002. The result is to be treated as a 16-bit unsigned number.

    Assumptions:

    
            .ORIG X3000
            AND R0, R0, #0
            LEA R3, NUM
            LDW R3, R3, #0
            LDW R1, R3, #0        
            ADD R2, R1, #0
    LOOP    ADD R0, R0, R1
            ADD R2, R2, #-1
            BRP LOOP          
            STW R0, R3, #1
            HALT
    NUM     .FILL x4000
            .END
    
    
    1. How many cycles does each instruction take to execute on the LC-3b microarchitecture described in Appendix C?
    2. How many cycles does the entire program take to execute? (answer in terms of k)
    3. What is the maximum value of k for which this program still works correctly?
    4. How will you modify this program to support negative values of k? Explain in less than 30 words.
    5. What is the new range of k?


    1. In which state(s) in the LC-3b state diagram should the LD.BEN signal be asserted? Is there a way for the LC-3b to work correctly without the LD.BEN signal? Explain.
    2. Suppose we want to get rid of the BEN register altogether. Can this be done? If so, explain how. If not, why not? Is it a good idea? Explain.
    3. Suppose we took this further and wanted to get rid of state 0. We can do this by modifying the microsequencer, as shown in the figure below. What is the 4-bit signal denoted as A in the figure? What is the 1-bit signal denoted as B?



  2. We wish to use the unused opcode "1010" to implement a new instruction ADDM, which (similar to an IA-32 instruction) adds the contents of a memory location to either the contents of a register or an immediate value. The specification of this instruction is as follows:

    Assembler Formats
    ADDM DR, SR1, SR2
    ADDM DR, SR1, imm5

    Encodings


    Operation

    if (bit[5] == 0)
        DR = Memory[SR1] + SR2;
    else
        DR = Memory[SR1] + SEXT(imm5);
    setcc(DR);
    

    1. We show below an addition to the state diagram necessary to implement ADDM. Using the notation of the LC-3b State Diagram, describe inside each "bubble" what happens in each state, and assign each state an appropriate state number (state A has been done for you). Also, what is the one-bit signal denoted as X in the figure? Note: Be sure your solution works when the same register is used for both sources and the destination (eg., ADDM R1, R1, R1).


    2. Add to the Data Path any additional structures and any additional control signals needed to implement ADDM. Label the additional control signals "ECS 1" (for "extra control signal 1"), "ECS 2", etc.
    3. The processing in each state A,B,C,D is controlled by asserting or negating each control signal. Enter a 1 or a 0 as appropriate for the microinstructions corresponding to states A,B,C,D.

  3. Design the "WE Logic" block of the LC-3b datapath as shown on Figure C.3 in Appendix C. The inputs to the block are MAR[0], R.W, and DATA.SIZE. The outputs of the block are WE0 and WE1. Show the truth table for this logic block and give a gate-level implementation.

  4. The Address Control Logic in the LC-3b datapath of Figure C.3 in Appendix C allows the LC-3b to support memory-mapped I/O. There are three inputs to this logic:
    The logic has five outputs:
    Your task is to draw the truth table for this Address Control Logic. Mark don't care values with X in your truth table. Use the conventions described above to denote the values of inputs and outputs. Please read Section C.6 in Appendix C on memory-mapped I/O before answering this question. Also, refer to Appendix A to find out the addresses of device registers.

  5. Consider the following piece of code:
         for(i = 0; i < 8; ++i){
           for(j = 0; j < 8; ++j){
             sum = sum + A[i][j];
           }
         }
    
    The figure below shows an 8-way interleaved, byte-addressable memory. The total size of the memory is 4KB. The elements of the 2-dimensional array, A, are 4-bytes in length and are stored in the memory in column-major order (i.e., columns of A are stored in consecutive memory locations) as shown. The width of the bus is 32 bits, and each memory access takes 10 cycles.

    A more detailed picture of the memory chips in Row 0 of Bank 0 is shown below.

    1. Since the address space of the memory is 4KB, 12 bits are needed to uniquely identify each memory location, i.e., Addr[11:0]. Specify which bits of the address will be used for:
      • Byte on bus
        Addr[_____:_____]
      • Interleave bits
        Addr[_____:_____]
      • Chip address
        Addr[_____:_____]
      • Row decode
        Addr[_____:_____]
    2. How many cycles are spent accessing memory during the execution of the above code? Compare this with the number of memory access cycles it would take if the memory were not interleaved (i.e., a single 4-byte wide array).
    3. Can any change be made to the current interleaving scheme to optimize the number of cycles spent accessing memory? If yes, which bits of the address will be used to specify the byte on bus, interleaving, etc. (use the same format as in part a)? With the new interleaving scheme, how many cycles are spent accessing memory? Remember that the elements of A will still be stored in column-major order.
    4. Using the original interleaving scheme, what small changes can be made to the piece of code to optimize the number of cycles spent accessing memory? How many cycles are spent accessing memory using the modified code?

  6. The figure below illustrates the logic and memory to support 512 MB (byte addressable) of physical memory, supporting unaligned accesses. The ISA contains LDByte, LDHalfWord, LDWord, STByte , STHalfWord and STWord instructions, where a Word is 32 bits. Bit 28 serves as a chip enable (active high). If this bit is high the data of the memory is loaded on the bus, otherwise the output of the memory chip floats(tri-stated).




    Construct the truth table to implement the LOGIC block, having inputs SIZE, R/W, 1st or 2nd access, PHYS_ADDR[1:0] and the outputs shown in the above figure. Assume that the value of SIZE can be Byte (00), HalfWord (01), and Word (10). Clearly explain what function each output serves.



  7.