Computer Architecture
(PCC CS-402)
Vector Processor
May 12, 2025
Introduction
■ A processor can operate on an entire vector in one
instruction.
■ Work done automatically in parallel
(simultaneously).
■ The operand to the instructions are complete vectors
instead of one element.
■ Vector instructions access memory with known
pattern.
■ Reduces branches and branch problems in pipelines.
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Introduction
■ Vector processor is an ensemble of hardware resources,
including vector registers, functional pipelines,
processing elements and register counters for
performing vector operations.
■ It is a coprocessor specially designed for vector
computation.
■ Vector instruction involves a large array of operands.
■ Are often used in multi-pipelined supercomputer.
■ Two different architectures are available:
● Register-to-register architecture (Ex.: Cray
supercomputer)
Uses shorter instruction and vector register files.
● Memory-to-memory architecture (Ex.: Cyber 205)
Uses memory based instructions which are longer in length
including memory address.
■ Consists with fixed number of vector registers.
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Register based Vector instruction
■ Typical register-based vector operations listed below
where vector operator is represented by ϋ, a scalar
register as Si, vector register of length n as Vi, memory
array of length n as M(1 : n):
● V1 ϋ V2 → V3 (binary vector)
● S1 ϋ V1 → V2 (scaling)
● V1 ϋ V2 → S1 (binary production)
● M(1 : n) → V1 (vector load)
● V1 → M(1 : n) (vector store)
● V1 → V2 (unary vector)
● V1 → S1 (unary production)
■ Vector length should be equal in all operands used in
vector instruction.
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Memory based Vector instruction
■ Typical memory-based vector operations listed below
where vector operator is represented by ϋ, a scalar
register as Si, memory array of length n as M(1:n),
scalar quantity stored in memory location k is
represented by M(k):
● M1(1 : n) ϋ M2(1 : n) → M(1 : n)
● S1 ϋ M1(1 : n) → M2(1 : n)
● M1(1 : n) → M2(1 : n)
● M1(1 : n) ϋ M2(1 : n) → M(k)
■ Vector length is not restricted by register length.
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Vector instruction types
■ Define vector instruction types by mathematical
mappings between their working registers or memory
where vector operands are stored
● Vector-vector instructions
One or two vector operands are fetched from the
respective vector registers.
Enter through a functional pipeline unit, and produce
results in another vector register
f1 : V i → Vj
f2 : V j × Vk → Vi
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Vector instruction types
● Vector-scalar instructions
Each elements of Vk are multiplied by a scalar s to
produce vector Vi of equal length.
f3 : s × V k → Vi
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Vector instruction types
● Vector-memory instructions
This corresponds to vector load or vector store element
by element, between the vector register (V) and the
memory (M) as defined below:
f4 : M → V (vector load)
f5 : V → M (vector store)
Vector Load instruction Vector Store instruction
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Vector instruction types
● Vector reduction instructions
f6 include finding the maximum, minimum, sum, and
mean value of all elements in a vector.
f 6 : V i → Sj
f7 is the dot product which performs from two vectors A
= (ai) and B = (bi).
f 7 : V i × V j → Sk
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Vector instruction types
● Masking instructions
This type of instruction uses a mask vector to
compress or to expand a vector to a shorter or longer
index vector respectively, corresponding to the
following mappings
f8 : V 0 × V m → V1
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Vector instruction types
● Gather instructions
This instruction use two vector registers to gather
vector elements randomly throughout the memory.
f9 : M → V1 × V0 (Gather)
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Vector instruction types
● Scatter instructions
This instruction use two vector registers to scatter
vector elements randomly throughout the memory.
f10 : V1 × V0 → M(Scatter)
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Basic Vector Architecture
■ Pipeline architecture may have a number of steps.
■ There is no standard when it comes to pipelining
technique.
■ Cray-1 has 14 stages to perform vector operations.
■ Data is read into vector registers which are FIFO
queues.
■ Can hold 50-100 floating point values.
■ The instruction set:
● Loads a vector register from a location in memory.
● Performs operations on elements in vector registers.
● Stores data back into memory from the vector registers.
■ A vector processor is easy to program parallel SIMD
computer.
■ Memory references and computations are overlapped to
bring about a tenfold speed increase.
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Basic Vector Architecture
Typical vector processor architecture.
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Basic Vector Architecture
Closer view of vector processor register and functional unit.
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Cray-1 Vector Architecture
Cray-1 vector computer architecture.
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Advantages
■ Each result is independent of previous results -
allowing high clock rates.
■ A single vector instruction performs a great deal of
work - meaning less fetches and fewer branches (and
in turn fewer mis-predictions).
■ Vector instructions access memory a block at a time
which results in very low memory latency.
■ Less memory access = faster processing time.
■ Lower cost due to low number of operations
compared to scalar counterparts.
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Disadvantages
■ Works well only with data that can be executed in
highly or completely parallel manner.
■ Needs large blocks of data to operate on to be efficient
because of the recent advances increasing speed of
accessing memory.
■ Severely lacking in performance compared to normal
processors on scalar data.
■ High price of individual chips due to limitations of
on-chip memory.
■ Increased code complexity needed to vectorize the
data.
■ High cost in design and low returns compared to
superscalar microprocessors.
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Applications
■ Useful in applications that involve comparing or
processing large blocks of data.
■ Multimedia Processing (compress., graphics, audio
synthesis, image processing)
■ Speech and handwriting recognition.
■ Lossy Compression (JPEG, MPEG video and audio).
■ Lossless Compression (Zero removal, RLE,
Differencing, LZW).
■ Cryptography (RSA, DES/IDEA, SHA/MD5).
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Conclusion
■ The Vector machine is faster at performing mathematical
operations on larger vectors.
■ The Vector processing computer’s vector register
architecture makes it better able to compute vast
amounts of data quickly.
■ While Vector Processing is not widely popular today, it
still represents a milestone in supercomputing
achievement.
■ Since scalar processors designed can also be used for
general applications their cost per unit is reduced
drastically. Such is not the case for vector
processors/supercomputers.
■ Vector processors will continue to have a future in Large
Scale computing and certain applications but can never
reach the popularity of Scalar microprocessors.
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