Course Outline

Objectives: Upon completion of this course, students will be able to:

Comprehend the basic concepts on which the stored-program computer is built;
Perceive the structure, design, and operation of the computer;
Understand the computer representation of integers and floating-point numbers and algorithms for computer arithmetic;
Create, debug, and execute assembly programs, gaining an understanding of the relationship between assembly code and the source code in a high level language;
Differentiate between the different types of parallel architectures;
Recognize some of the drawbacks, limitations, advantages, and disadvantages of the different computer architectures.

Topic Outline: (Time table not yet tested, subject to change)

Weeks 1 and 2: Review and Introductory Material
1. Preface: How to use the text
2. Appendix C (on CD-ROM): The Basics of Logic Design
  1. Gates and circuits
  2. Boolean algebra and truth tables
  3. Combinational logic
  4. Sequential logic
  5. Finite state machines
3. Appendix B: Introduction: Assemblers, Linkers, and the SPIM simulator
  1. Assemblers, linkers, loaders
  2. The MIPS assembly language
    (For more information, refer to text by Britton -- or similar text)
  3. The SPIM simulator for running MIPS programs
    (Version 7.4 currently installed on Computer Science Linux boxes)
4. Chapter 1: Introduction: Computer Abstractions and Technology
  1. What's going on below?
  2. Computer Performance
  3. Benchmarks; Metrics
  4. Some historical comments
Week 3: Chapter 2: Instructions -- Language of the Computer
(For more information, refer to text by Britton -- or similar text)
1. Operations; Operands
2. Bits, bytes, words
3. Signed and unsigned numbers
4. Numbers and number bases; Conversions
5. Instruction formats for MIPS
6. Addressing Modes
7. Synchronization
8. Decision-making
9. Procedure/function calls; Stack
10. Arrays; Pointers
  (Note: this information is used throughout the course)
Weeks 4 and 5: Chapter 3: Arithmetic for Computers
1. Special purpose codes
2. Binary arithmetic and hardware
3. Computer arithmetic
4. Multiplication and division
5. Floating-point numbers
Weeks 6 through 8: Chapter 4: The Processor
1. Logic design conventions
2. Structure; Datapaths
3. Control unit
4. A simple implementation
5. Pipelining and a Pipelined implementation
6. Pipelined Datapaths
7. Data and Control Hazards; Forwarding; Stalls
8. Exceptions
9. Comparison of different implementations
10. Parallelism
Weeks 9 through 11: Chapter 5: Large and Fast: Exploiting Memory Hierarchy
1. Caches; Measuring performance
2. Virtual memory
3. Common framework for memory hierarchies
4. Virtual machines
5. A finite state machine used for cache control
6. Parallelism with caches: cache coherence
7. Cache control
Weeks 12 and 13: Chapter 6: Storage and Other I/O Topics
1. Dependability, Reliability, Availability
2. Disk and Flash Storage
3. Connecting processors with memory and I/O devices
4. Interfacing I/O devices with processors, memory, and the operating system
5. I/O Performance
6. Design of an I/O system
7. Redundant arrays of inexpensive disks: RAID
8. Networks
Weeks 14 and 15: Chapter 7: Multicores, Multiprocessors, and Clusters
1. Problem: parallel processing programs
2. Shared-memory multiprocessors
3. Clusters and other message-passing multiprocessors
4. Hardware multithreading
5. Categories: SISD, MIMD, SIMD, SPMD, Vector
6. Multiprocessor networks
7. Multiprocessing performance and benchmarks
if time ...: Appendix A: Graphical Processing Units
Week 16: Final Exam

CS 470 DL: Computer Architecture

Course Outline

CS 470 DL: Computer
Architecture