CSE140 Computer Architecture (Fall semester 2007)

Instructor

Miguel Á. Carreira-Perpiñán Assistant professor Electrical Engineering and Computer Science School of Engineering University of California, Merced mcarreira-perpinan-[at]-ucmerced.edu; 209-2284545 Office: 284, Science & Engineering Building

Office hours: by appointment (call or email, including [CSE140] in the subject).

TA: Yazhou (David) Huang, yhuang6-[at]-ucmerced.edu (SE290).

Lectures: Mondays 12-1:20pm and Fridays 11-12:20pm (Linux Lab, SE154)

Lab class: Thursdays 4-7:50pm (Linux Lab, SE154)

Course web page: http://faculty.ucmerced.edu/mcarreira-perpinan/CSE140

Course description

Fundamental concepts of digital computer design, including instruction sets, memory systems and registers, logic and mathematics units, and off-cpu communication and control. Course will also survey the diversity of contemporary computer designs.

Prerequisites: CSE31

Textbook

Required textbook (get the errata and additional errata):

David Patterson and John Hennessy: Computer Organization and Design, revised printing, third edition. Morgan Kaufmann, 2007.

Note some of the sections and appendices are online in the book CD. The companion site for the book has errata and solutions to "For More Practice" exercises. I recommend (but don't require) that you read the "Historical perspective" online chapters.

Other books recommended as additional reading:

John Hennessy and David Patterson: Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach. Morgan Kaufmann, 2007. This is a textbook for a graduate course in Computer Architecture.

Syllabus and required textbook reading

Before each class, you should have read the corresponding part of the textbook. I will teach the material in the order below (which is more or less the order in the book). Generally, skip all online content unless noted below.

Ch. 1: Computer Abstractions and Technology.
Ch. 2: Instructions: Language of the Computer.
Read also 2.12.
App. A: Assemblers, Linkers, and the SPIM Simulator.
App. B: The Basics of Logic Design.
Ch. 3: Arithmetic for Computers.
Ch. 4: Assessing and Understanding Performance.
Ch. 5: The Processor: Datapath and Control.
Skip 5.5 (except p. 318-324, fig. 5.30 and the example in p. 330), 5.6-5.9, 5.12.
App. C: Mapping Control to Hardware.
Skip C.3-C.7.
Ch. 6: Enhancing Performance with Pipelining.
Skip 6.7-6.10 and the details of the pipeline registers and control in 6.4-6.6.
Ch. 7: Large and Fast: Exploiting Memory Hierarchy.
Ch. 8: Storage, Networks, and Other Peripherals.
Ch. 9: Multiprocessors.

Handouts and lab assignments

I will give in-class quizzes periodically, mostly consisting of exercises from the textbook. They will make up a portion of your final grade. I strongly recommend that you try to solve as many of the book exercises on your own ahead of time.
Projects (to be submitted and graded):
- Project #1 (MIPS programming) due Nov 29 at noon, in groups of 1 or 2 students. Late projects will get a grade of zero.

The following tools will be useful for the lab work (they are all installed in the Linux lab):

SPIM MIPS Simulator. Appendix A of the textbook describes it.
C cross-compiler for MIPS. If you want to install it in a Linux PC, use these binaries; uncompress the file in /opt/ccmips, add /opt/ccmips/bin to your PATH, then try mips-gcc, etc.
Text editors: XEmacs (reference card), vi.
Programming tools (check their respective man pages): gcc, as, ld, od, xxd, gdb, xxgdb, ddd, ar, nm, objcopy, objdump, readelf, size, gcov, gprof, oprofile.

Course grading

Midterm exam (25%): in-class, partly closed-book, consisting of problems and conceptual questions.
Final exam (25%): as the midterm.
Quizzes (25%): in-class, open-book, consisting of exercises (partly from the textbook); bring the textbook & green card, a printout of appendix B and a calculator (but no computers).
Lab projects (25%).

While I encourage you to discuss your work with other students, the projects and the exam must be the result of your own work without collaboration.

Grade curves: as of Nov. 20 and final.