EE482C (EE482S) Advanced Computer Organization:
Stream Processor Architecture - Spring 2001/2002
 

Arithmetic is very inexpensive on a modern VLSI chip, making bandwidth the factor limiting system performance. In 0.13um CMOS, for example, a 64-bit floating-point arithmetic unit takes less than 1mm2 of chip area and consumes less than 10fJ of energy per operation. It is possible to put hundreds of such arithmetic units on a single chip and to operate them at 1GHz with a total power of less than a few Watts. The challenge is to supply these hundreds of arithmetic units with the TeraBytes/s of instruction and data bandwidth they require.

Stream processing has recently emerged as a method for optimizing the arithmetic to bandwidth ratio of a computation. Casting an application as a stream program, that is, as streams of data passing through computation kernels, exposes the parallelism and locality in the program. A stream architecture exploits the parallelism of the stream program using hundreds of arithmetic units and exploits the locality of the stream program using a bandwidth hierarchy. The bandwidth hierarchy significantly reduces demand for memory bandwidth and power consumption which in modern processors is mostly due to data movement. During Spring Quarter 2001/2002, EE482A (EE482S) will examine the architecture and programming of stream processors. The topics to be covered are listed in the schedule.


We will be meeting at TCSeq 101 for the rest of the quarter, Mattan. (4/15/2002)

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Last Modified : March 22, 2002 by Mattan Erez.