MC723 - Computer systems design laboratory

Notices

11/02	Final Notes.
26/01	We have a vacancy for PAD in this discipline for the first semester of 2010. Interested parties please contact me.
18/01	Instructions to install the tools on your personal computer.
15/01	Check out two short tutorials on video site (in MC723AB 2009).
12/01	Discussion on assignments on January 13 at the beginning of the class.
12/01	Deliveries done so far. Please follow the nomenclature of the files delivered.
07/01	Report Template.
05/01	Form groups for the second part of the discipline. Fill this spreadsheet.
05/01	Important dates of graduation calendar.

Objectives

Improve the concepts learned in the Computer Systems Design course through exercises and the modeling of a system with processor (s) and peripheral (s).

Activities

The semester will be divided into two parts: exercises and project. In the exercise section, each student will implement small activities to ensure understanding of some basic topics. In the second part, each group will implement a project that will be defined at the beginning of the semester.

All deliveries have an automatic grace period of 24 hours, but I will not accept any justification for postponement based on facts that occurred in those 24 hours. The grace period is not valid if you exceed the term limit.

• Exercises (individual, everyone should do)
• Works (in group, 1 work per group)

Bibliography

• David A. Patterson and John L. Hennessy. Computer Organization Design, The Hardware / Software Interface. Morgan Kaufmann
• Language ArchC
• Language SystemC

Customer service

In addition to the time reserved for the subject, I can serve students at various alternative times, including bits of the lunch time and also early evening hours ( until 20h).

To facilitate your service, try to book by email to ensure that I am available on the day. Send a message suggesting an opening time (look at my updated schedule). If you want to show me some code, try to have it installed on the ssh.students.ic.unicamp.br machine so that it is easy to demonstrate on the spot (please avoid bringing something to install on my machine, my experience says that we will have great work to install).

Exercises

Everyone must do each of the following exercises individually:

• Exercise 1: Creation and evaluation of a collective benchmark.
• Exercise 2: Compiling, running, debugging and more ...
• Exercise 3: Simulation of caches
• Exercise 4: Multicore platforms

The exercises should be performed predominantly in the classroom.

Jobs

See the delivery times in the calendar:

Each delivery must be in the form of a report with a maximum size of 2 pages. All groups must keep the code defined for each delivery for presentation. There will be a draw for the intermediate phases and all groups will make a final presentation directly with the teacher.

Detailed Specification Report

This is the first report where the group must describe, in detail, what will be done at work. The limit is still 2 pages, so please write only what is necessary. Think of it as a phase of study and improvement of the specification. Use the concepts you have already learned from the exercises, along with the goals for your work. It is possible to change the specification in the future, along with other deliveries (talk to the teacher if necessary).

For platform work, I recommend the following sections:

1. Introduction: Briefly present what is expected of your platform: functionalities, features, components, motivation to create it, a general diagram of the platform can be useful for future sections, etc
2. Platform components: Create a subsection for each of the components and indicate relevant questions about each one. Ex .: communication protocol, interface with the software, restrictions, form of implementation (at least one goal), etc.
3. Software: What will be done in software, how will it work, what will run on each processor, etc.
4. Distribution of activities for each delivery: Planning the next classes and justification for the chosen approach. Ex .: in each class a subset of the implemented and working components can be made or all the components will be developed in parallel but will be partially delivered in each delivery, etc.
5. Allocation of activities to the group members: If the group is going to divide the activities, indicate which ones will remain with each member.

For other works, the format is free, but use the above description about platforms as inspiration.

Delivery format

For partial deliveries, proceed according to the exercises delivering only a 2-page report named gXXfY.pdf where XX Your group number with 2 digits and Y the delivery number. The subject of the email should be: MC723 - FY - GXX.

A file with the name gXX.tgz, Where XX Is the number of your group with 2 digits (Ex .: 01 instead of 1), sent by email containing the subject: MC723 - FY - GXX, Where Y the delivery phase and XX Is your group number. Within this file there must be only one directory with the name gXXWhere XX Is the number of your group, and within that directory it must contain:

• A delivery report with the name gXXfY.pdfWhere XX the name of your group and Y phase number
• The other files required for delivery as below:
• If your project is on a platform, only the file generated by the command arp.py --pack, after the execution of a make clean not to send garbage. Your project will be tested by unzipping the package sent, executing make e make run. It is the group's obligation to ensure that the desired functionality is available by executing only these three commands
  
• If your project is on a processor, the source files for ArchC
• In other cases, the necessary source files, as well as compilation scripts and documentation.

Some groups are complaining about not being able to execute the command arp. The problem is in the command you are trying to execute. The correct command is arp.py that is inside the directory bin. Unfortunately there is another program within the arp package that is causing this confusion (it was a soft-link that ended up being broken during distribution).

Any delivery out of specification that does not have a prior agreement with the teacher will be strictly disregarded.

Calendar

06/01	Presentation of the discipline and Exercise 1.
08 / 01S	Exercise 2
13/01	Exercise 3
15 / 01S	Exercise 4
20/01	Work
22 / 01S	Work
27/01	Delivery of works (first date option)
10/02	Delivery of works (second date option)