User:Iain.mcclatchie

This barnstar awarded for outstanding contributions to computer architecture articles on Wikipedia.
SimonW 23:15, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Hacking on Wikipedia requires a strong stomach. Exerpted from "If?" by Rudyard Kipling:

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools

...then maybe you've got what it takes to write stuff here, and make it stick.

Here's my plan:

• Microarchitecture
  • Classic RISC Pipeline
  • Cache
    • CPU caches -- this wasn't strictly necessary, and got huge. Still to do: cache hierarchy and the similarity to predictors.
    • Loop nest optimization -- just an example so far.
    • Multiprocessor cache coherence -- haven't touched it yet
  • Out-of-order execution
  • Register renaming -- covers OoO to some extent
  • Virtual to physical address translation
    • TLBs
• Physical implementation
  • Logic circuit families
    • CMOS
      • stack-latch flops
      • pulse flops
      • flops versus latches
      • stall signals
    • Domino
      • implicit latches
  • Phase-locked loops -- total mess!
  • CPU recurences
    • branch predictor
    • in-order dispatch
    • out-of-order issue
    • ALU-bypass
      • skewed datapath
      • conditional moves
    • integer load
      • Sum addressed decoder
    • Floating-point unit
      • Multiplication, including Booth recoding, modified Booth-2 and -3

Complete rewrites or new pages:

• Load-balanced switch
• hydrogen economy -- d'oh! just when LeonardG and I had this looking reasonable, another couple of editors made it worse!
• rocket fuel

Major hacking:

• wind turbine (still needs a lot of help).

In process:

• User:Iain.mcclatchie/Hydrogen_economy