6 days ago · Vector processors are classified into two primary architectures: memory to memory and register to register. These classification are important to optimize performance on the scientific computing and other data intensive applications. What is …

Vector Computer: In a vector computer, a vector processor is attached to the scalar processor as an optional feature. The host computer first loads program and data to the main memory. Then the scalar control unit decodes all the instructions.

Mar 14, 2024 · For example, a VLOAD (vector load) can load multiple elements from RAM into a vector register, a VADD (vector add) can perform addition on all elements, and so on. Thus single instruction...

Vector Processing: Exploiting Regular (Data) Parallelism. Data Parallelism. Concurrency arises from performing the same operations on different pieces of data. Single instruction multiple data (SIMD) E.g., dot product of two vectors. Contrast with data flow.

Vector architectures provide pipelined execution of many data operations Vector Register: register file containing multiple elements of a set of data stored sequentially One instruction performs an operation on an entire vector of data Operations are performed in parallel on independent elements CS-4515, D-Term 2015 Vector Architectures 5 V0 . a

• Single vector instruction implies lots of work (loop) – Fewer instruction fetches • Each result independent of previous result – Multiple operations can be executed in parallel – Simpler design, high clock rate – Compiler (programmer) ensures no dependencies • Reduces branches and branch problems in pipelines

Unlike scalar processors that operate on only a single pair of data, a vector processor operates on multiple pair of data. However, one can convert a scalar code into vector code. This conversion process is known as vectorization. So, we can say vector processing allows operation on multiple data elements by the help of single instruction.

It was suggested that a key aspect of vector architecture is the single-instruction-multiple-data (SIMD) execution model. SIMD support results from the type of data supported by the instruction set, and how instructions operate on that data. In a traditional scalar processor, the basic data type is an n-bit word.

registers have a significant number of read and write ports to allow multiple simultaneous vector operations. A set of crossbar switches (thick gray lines) connects these ports to the inputs and outputs of the vector functional units.

- Vector length can be more than maximum # of data elements in a VR (a.k.a. MVL) - Vector length may not be a multiple of MVL - Strip mining - Split the vector into multiple of MVL - Residual elements handled separately - Example: Multiply two vectors of length 1000 - 15 iterations with full sized vectors (VLEN = 64) - One iteration with VLEN = 40