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This course focuses on the techniques of quantitative analysis and evaluation of modern computing systems, such as the selection of appropriate benchmarks to reveal and compare the performance of alternative design choices in system design. The emphasis is on the major component subsystems of high performance computers: pipelining, instruction level parallelism, memory hierarchies, input/output, and network-oriented interconnections. Students will undertake a major computing system analysis and design project of their own choosing.
Unique Number: 47315
Meeting Place: MWF 2-3, WEL 2.304
Instructor: Mike Dahlin
Office Hours: MW 3-4 or by appointment, TAY 4.136
TA: TBD
TA Office Hours: TBD
Textbook: Hennessy and Patteson Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach, Second Edition
Note that the 2nd edition is significantly different than the 1st edition, and it is not recommended that you attempt to use the 1st edition as a textbook for this course.
In addition, we will read current papers on various aspects of current computer architecture research. Watch this space for a pointer to the reading list.
10% Class Participation
30% Homework (Work in pairs)
30% Exams (2 midterms)
30% Project (Work in pairs)
Week | Date | Topic | Reading | Due |
1 | Jan 13 | Intro, Admin, Review: Perf/Cost, Amdahl's Law, Tech Trends | Ch 1 | |
2 | Jan 20 | Caching and Memory, ISAs, Pipelining, Hazards and Branch Prediction | Ch 2 | M: MLK Holiday
F: HW 1 |
3 | Jan 27 | Pipelining, Hazards, and Static Branch Prediction | Ch 3 | F: Project Proposal |
4 | Feb 3 | ILP: Scoreboarding, Tomasulu, Speculation | Ch 4 | F: HW 2 |
5 | Feb 10 | ILP: Dynamic Prediction, Limits of ILP, Vector Processors | Ch D | |
6 | Feb 17 | Memory Hierarchy | Ch 5 | F: Project Survey |
7 | Feb 24 | Memory DRAM, VM, and Banks | F: HW 3 | |
8 | Mar 3 | Memory and Review | W: Midterm 1 | |
9 | Mar 10 | Spring Break | M-F: Spring Break | |
10 | Mar 17 | I/O: Metrics, Queuing, Busses, Disks, RAID | Ch 6 | |
11 | Mar 24 | I/O: Tertiary, Networks | F: HW 4 | |
12 | Mar 31 | Networks | Ch 7 | F: Project Checkpoint |
13 | Apr 7 | Networks, Parallel Architectures | F: HW 5 | |
14 | Apr 14 | MPPs | Ch 8 | |
15 | Apr 21 | MPPs, Review | W: Midterm 2 | |
16 | Apr 28 | Project Preseantations | M/W/F: Project Presentations
Fri: Last Day of Classes |
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M: Project Written Report |