ECE 429/629 Organization of Computers

Fall 2004

 This course introduces the principles of advanced computer architecture. Students are expected to enter this class with a basic understanding of computer architecture, along with assembly language. Building upon these fundamentals, the students will learn advanced architectural techniques for making computers run orders of magnitude faster than would be possible from technological improvements alone.

Syllabus

Announcements

• 8/17/04: Welcome!
• 9/23/04:  First exam will be Tuesday, 10/5, in class.  We will have a review session on 9/30.

Schedule

Week	Topic	Readings	Assignment
1	introduction / overview	1.1-1.3, 1.11, 2.11, 2.16
2	performance evaluation	1.5-1.10	HW1
3	instruction sets	2.1-2.3, 2.12; COD 3.1-3.8	HW2
4	datapath and control I	COD 4.5, 5.1-5.3, B.1-B.5	HW3
5	datapath and control II	COD 5.4-5.6, B.6	HW4
6	review and exam
7	pipelining I	Appendix A.1-A.3; (COD 6.1-6.6)	HW5
8	pipelining II	Appendix A.4-A.5	HW6
9	dynamic scheduling I	Appendix A.8, 3.1-3.3	HW7
10	dynamic scheduling II	3.4-3.9	HW8
11	review and exam
12	software techniques for ILP	4.1-4.6	HW9
13	memory hierarchy I	5.1-5.5	HW10
14	memory hierarchy II	5.6-5.10	HW11
15	thread-level parallelism	6.1-6.3
16	final exam

Note: COD refers to David A. Patterson and John L. Hennessy, Computer organization and design : the hardware/software interface, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, 1998. (on reserve at the library: QA76.9.C643 H46)

Assignments

• HW1 due Thursday, 9/2
• HW2 due Thursday, 9/16
• HW3 due Thursday, 9/23
• HW4 due Thursday, 9/30
• exam1 on Tuesday, 10/5, in class (exam1 study guide)
• HW5 due Thursday, 10/21
• HW6 due Thursday, 10/28
• exam2 on Thursday, 11/11, in class (exam2 study guide)
• HW7  due Tuesday, 11/18
• final exam on Saturday, 12/4 6:30-9:30pm (final exam study guide)

Materials available at Clemson's MyCLE:

• From MyCLE, click on Login -> Class & Work -> MyCLE classes -> Fall 2004 -> ECE429 -> MyFiles -> ClassMaterials.
  Look under MyFiles or Read Only -> LibraryReserves

Outside links:

• Similar courses
  • Dirk Grunwald's CSCI 5593 course at University of Colorado
  • Mark Smotherman's CS464/664 course at Clemson
  • David Culler's CS252 course at U.C. Berkeley
  • David Patterson's CS252 course at U.C. Berkeley
  • John Kubiatowicz's CS152 course and CS252 course at U.C. Berkeley
  • Chen's course in Taiwan
  • Montek Singh's COMP 206 ourse at UNC Chapel Hill
  • Mikko Lipasti's ECE/CS 552 course at University of Wisconsin-Madison
  • Cyndi Rader's CS341 course at Colorado School of Mines
• Other links
  •  Paul Carter's PC Assembly Language on-line book
  • SPEC homepage -- SPEC faq -- SPEC Open Systems Group (OPG) -- SPEC readme -- SPEC CPU2000 results
  • Hans Moravec, When will computer hardware match the human brain?, Journal of Evolution and Technology, 1998.
  • David Goldberg's What every computer scientist should know about floating-point arithmetic, Computing Surveys, 1991

Administrivia

Instructor: Stan Birchfield, 207-A Riggs Hall, 656-5912, email: stb at clemson
Grader: TBD
Lectures: 1:25 - 2:15 MWF, 307 Riggs Hall