CSCI 6380 — Advanced Computer Architecture

Spring 2008

When: 3:00 - 3:50, MWF, Spring 2008.

Where: UCA Comp Sci & Tech 331.

Lecturer: Dr. Doug L. Hoffman

Office Hours: by appointment

Description

This course covers advanced concepts and principles of computer architecture and design. It will start by examining the changing face of computer architecture and the task of the computer designer. Quantitative principles of computer design will be applied to the evaluation of performance and reliability. Topics covered include: Exploitation of Instruction Level Parallelism in modern processors, including the hazards of instruction scheduling and the limits of ILP; advanced techniques for exploiting ILP, in particular support for thread-level parallelism; multiprocessors and thread-level parallelism; memory hierarchy design, including cache optimization; and advanced topics in storage systems. Topics will be illustrated using case studies of actual processor designs.

Course Grading

Home work 40%: total, 10 weekly assignments.

Tests 50%:

2 Quizzes 10% (of testing total)

Mid-Term 30%

Final 50%

Class participation 10%

Topics by Week (tentative)

1/11 Introduction and course overview.

1/14 – 1/18 Trends in Computer Performance

1/21 Martin Luther King Holiday (no class)

1/23 – 1/25 Pipelining and Hazards

1/28 – 2/1 The Memory Hierarchy

2/4 – 2/8 Quiz #1 and IBM360 vs RISC

2/11 – 2/15 Instruction Level Parallelism

2/18 – 2/22 Limits of ILP

2/25 – 2/29 Simultaneous Multithreading

3/3 – 3/7 Vector Computers

3/7 Mid-term Exam!

3/10 – 3/14 Multiprocessors

3/17 – 3/21 Quiz #2, Snooping Cache and Directory Based Multiprocessors

3/22 – 3/30 Spring Break

3/31 – 4/4 Scalability and a look at the Sun T1 Niagra & UltraSPARC

4/7 – 4/11 Future MP Directions/Advanced Memory Hierarchy

4/14 – 4/18 Virtual machines/Opteron Memory Performance vs Pentium 4

4/21 – 4/23 Storage – RAID and a little Queuing Theory (time permitting)

4/25 Study Day

4/28 – 5/2 Final Examinations!