ECES 795 — Introduction to Computer Architecture

EECS 7095

http://eecs.ceas.uc.edu/~paw/classes/eecs7095

ECES 7095 — Introduction to Computer Architecture Instructor:

Philip A. Wilsey Office: 836 Rhodes Hall Office Hrs: All day Tues/Thurs.

Catalog Data:

20-EECS-7095. INTRODUCTION TO COMPUTER ARCHITECTURE. Processor design concepts: quantitative assessment of design alternatives, historical perspectives, virtualization, language directed architecture. The memory hierarchy: virtual memory management, cache memories, consistency, coherence, transactional memory. Pipelining: instruction level parallelism, dynamic scheduling, speculation, multithreading. Parallelism: data-parallelism (vector, SIMD, and GPU), thread and task level parallelism (shared memory, distributed memory, and multi-/many-core processors). Warehouse and cloud computing. Storage systems. Prereq: 20EECS-3026 or its equivalent. Autumn: 3-3-0.

Textbook:

J. L. Hennessy and D. A. Patterson, Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach, 5th edition, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, Inc., San Mateo, California, 2012.

Other Reading:

G.J. Myers, “Requisites for Improved Architectures,” in Tutorial on Advanced Microprocessors and High-Level Language Computer Architecture, V. Milutionovic (Ed.), 1986, pp 27–62.

Goals:

To expose students to the design considerations and design possibilities and quantitative design strategies for building/evaluating computer systems.

Topics:

1. Introduction/Historical Perspectives 2. High Level Language Directed Architecture Myers article (online copy from class webpages) 3. Trends & Quantitative Assessment (Chapter 1) 4. Instruction Set Principles (Appendix A) 5. Memory Systems (Appendix B & Chapter 2) 6. Virtualization (outside readings) 7. Pipelining & Instruction Level Parallelism (Appendix C & Chapters 3) 8. Data Parallelism (Chapter 4) 9. Thread and Task Level Parallelism (Chapter 5 & Appendix I) 10. Topics in Parallelism (outside readings) 11. WareHouse-Scale Computing (Chapter 6) 12. Storage Systems (Appendix D)

Grading:

Midterm Exam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40% Final Exam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60%

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http://eecs.ceas.uc.edu/~paw/ [email protected] (513) 556–4779

EECS 7095

http://eecs.ceas.uc.edu/~paw/classes/eecs7095

EECS 7095 — Class Policies • Class Participation: Classroom discussions are an extremely important component of this class. Involvement in class discussions will impact your grade. Questions are encouraged and expected. No question is too simple to be asked. I am usually willing to, occasionally, pursue topics in class that are somewhat tangential to the immediate lecture. Do yourself and your peers a favor — participate. • Class Web Pages: A web site for this class exists at http://eecs.ceas.uc.edu/~paw/ classes/eecs7095. You can find a copy of the syllabus, some class notes, and copies of old exams/projects there. As is typical of web pages, this one is still under construction. I will notify you throughout the term as I make changes to it. • Electronic Mail: All students are encouraged to participate in electronic mail communication with me. I usually check my e-mail several times a day and this is probably the best and fastest way to obtain a response to your questions. My e-mail address is [email protected]. Please keep your messages brief and to the point. Always include your name and e-mail address in the messages that you send to me. • Exams: All in-class exams will be comprehensive, closed-book, closed-note exams. In general, my exams contain several essay questions. Most of these questions will be written so that they can be answered with less than one page of writing. If you are writing several pages for each question, then you’ve likely missed the point of the problem. Grammar and spelling will not impact your exam grade beyond the fact that I must be able to make sense of your answers. • Auditor/Pass-Fail: Auditors will receive the T grade only if they earn the equivalent of a “C” grade in the course; otherwise you will receive a failing grade. Likewise, pass-fail students must also earn a grade of “C” to receive a passing grade. • Neatness: All assignments, papers, and programming projects will be neatly prepared. Failure to turn in neatly prepared work will result in a loss of points. I reserve the right to assign a negative grade to any work that is not well prepared. • Cheating: Unless otherwise designated, all programming projects and exams will be individual efforts. Failure to perform your own work will constitute cheating and all cheaters will be failed. No exceptions, no withdrawals allowed. • Know Your Professor: I have reserved Tuesday and Thursday afternoons for meeting students. Please take advantage of this time, get to know me. Stop in for discussions on computing, you studies, or your future plans. I’m available and am generally willing to engage in discussions on a variety of topics.

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