Keep up with the indicated pace of reading in each chapter for class.

Submit your solutions to the following problems, which are specific exercises from the end of chapter 1 of the book by Patterson and Hennessy, by 1:00 PM, Saturday, 12 January 2009. You may hand in your work at Science Hall 131, if it is open, or at the faculty mailboxes in Briggs.

The numbering of the exercises is from the “original” 3rd edition. If you are working from a newer edition of the book, we will need a remapping scheme.

1. Exercise 1.46: In a magnetic disk, the platters containing the data are constantly rotating. On average it should take half a revolution for the desired data on the disk to spin under the read/write head. Assuming that the disk is rotating at 7200 revolutions per minute (RPM), what is the average time for the data to rotate under the disk head? What is the average time if the disk is spinning at 10,000 RPM?
2. Exercise 1.47: DVD drives work in the constant linear velocity (CLV) mode. The read head must interact with concentric circles (approximating the actual spiral track), whether it is accessing data from the inner- or outermost portions of the disk. The rotation speed varies from 1600 RPM at the center to 570 RPM at the outside. Assuming that the DVD drive reads 1.35 MiB of data per second, how many bytes can the center circle store? How many bytes can the outide circle store?
3. Exercise 1.48: If a computer issues 30 network requests per second and each request is on average 64 KiB, will a 100 Mbit/s Ethernet link be sufficient?
4. Exercise 1.51: Fixed costs including R&D, fabrication, equipment, and so on add up to $500,000 for a factory for a certain integrated circuit chip. The cost per wafer is $6000, and each wafer can be diced into 1500 dies. The die yield is 50%. Finally, the dies are packaged and tested, with a cost of $10 per chip. The test yield is 90%; only those that pass the test will be sold to customers. If the retail price is 40% more than the cost, at least how many chips have to be sold to break even?
5. Exercise 1.52: In general, a CPU for a complex instruction set computer (CISC) has more complex instructions than a CPU for a reduced instruction set conputer (RISC) and therefore needs fewer instructions to perform the same task. Yet typically one CISC instruction, being more complex, takes more time to complete than a RISC instruction. Assume that a certain task needs P CISC instructions or 2P RISC instructions, and that one CISC instruction takes 8T ns to complete, and one RISC instruction takes 2T ns. Under such assumptions, which one has the better performance?
6. Exercise 1.54: Sometimes software optimization can dramaticaly improve the performance of a computer system. Assume that a CPU can perform a multiplication operation in 10 ns and a subtraction operation in 1 ns. How long will it take for the CPU to calculate the result of d = a × b – a × c? Couldl you optimize the equation so that it wil take less time?

For work of this sort, some indication of method (not just final result) is appropriate.

If you want to consider doing an individual project, you should identify a topic as quickly as possible. What resources are available to you (computer system, printed sources, Web sources)? What role would you propose for the project in your overall course work for the term?

Note that the final deadline for all written work in this course will be 1:00 PM, Saturday, 14 March 2009.