Homework 4

CMSC 411 / Olano, Fall 2013

The MIPS R4000 had an eight-stage pipeline as shown here:

R4000 pipeline

This organization can be completely pipelined without structural hazards, as shown in this pipeline timing diagram:

                    Cycle ->
Instruction         0  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10 11 12 13 14 15
0: add  $1, $2, $3  IF IS RF EX DF DS TC WB
1: add  $4, $5, $6     IF IS RF EX DF DS TC WB
2: add  $7, $8, $9        IF IS RF EX DF DS TC WB
3: add $10,$11,$12           IF IS RF EX DF DS TC WB
4: add $13,$14,$15              IF IS RF EX DF DS TC WB
5: add $16,$17,$18                 IF IS RF EX DF DS TC WB
6: add $19,$20,$21                    IF IS RF EX DF DS TC WB
7: add $22,$23,$24                       IF IS RF EX DF DS TC WB
8: add $25,$26,$27                          IF IS RF EX DF DS TC WB
  1. Pipeline speedup

    What is the ideal pipeline speedup for the R4000

  2. Data hazards and forwarding

    For each data hazard that can happen between R-type instructions with this organization between: 1) show a sequence of MIPS instructions that has that that hazard and no others. 2) Explain what forwarding would be necessary to avoid it (e.g. forward the ALU result from EX/DF of instruction 0 in cycle 4 to ALU input in EX of instruction 1 in cycle 5). 3) Give a multi-cycle pipeline diagram showing any stalls necessary with a line drawn between the end of one stage to the beginning of a stage in the next cycle, showing the forwarding you propose.

  3. Data load/compute hazards

    Repeat the previous problem, but showing hazards between data from a load instruction to be used by an R-type instruction.

  4. Data compute/store hazards

    Repeat the previous problem, but showing hazards between data from an R-type instruction to be used by a store instruction.

  5. Data load/store hazards

    Repeat one more time, showing hazards between data load and data store.

  6. Forwarding organization

    Draw a version of the R4000 pipeline organization with all of these forwarding paths

Optional Extra Credit

In class, we used this single-cycle organization for the SSEM, assuming a modern multi-port register unit could be used for the 32-words of memory.

SSEM diagram

This a microcode representation of how this datapath is used for each of the seven instructions:

JMP: Data0=Mem[C]; Data1=Mem[Data0[12:0]]; ALU=0+Data1; C=ALU+1
JRP: Data0=Mem[C]; Data1=Mem[Data0[12:0]]; ALU=C+Data1; C=ALU+1
LDN: Data0=Mem[C]; Data1=Mem[Data0[12:0]]; ALU=0-Data1; A=ALU; C=C+1
STO: Data0=Mem[C]; Mem[Data0[12:0]]=A; C=C+1
SUB: Data0=Mem[C]; Data1=Mem[Data0[12:0]]; ALU=A-Data1; A=ALU; C=C+1
CMP: Data0=Mem[C]; ALU=C+1; if(A<0) C=ALU+1 else C=C+1
STP: Data0=Mem[C]; ALU=C-1; C=ALU+1
  1. Pipelining an organization

    Draw a modified architecture with a 3-stage pipeline: instruction fetch, data memory, execute. You do not need to include forwarding.

  2. Microcode

    Write microcode for the seven instructions on your architecture. Assume every microcode instruction includes the microcode address of the next-instruction

  3. Hazards

    Which pairs of instructions could possibly have hazards, what kind of hazard, and how many cycles of stall would be necessary to resolve the hazard?

  4. Forwarding

    Which of these cannot be resolved by forwarding? Assuming you do as much as you can with forwarding, how many cycles of stall cannot be avoided for each case.

Submitting

As this homework does not include programming, you should submit a hard copy of your assignment at the beginning of class on the due date. Electronic or email submissions will not be accepted for this assignment.