Summer 2014

CSE2021 is a unique course in that it bridges the gap between software (S/W) and hardware (H/W) and exposes the roles played by the operating system (O/S) and the digital logic (D/L) circuits. It relies on a hierarchy of abstractions to present the material in layers, switching roles from “using” to “implementing” at every stage. It follows the journey of instructions from high-level to assembly and machine code, through the stack, the heap, and the caches, to the CPU's datapath and control. The lecture coverage is augmented by labs that provide hands-on experience in MIPS and Verilog.

By the end of the course, you are expected to be able to:

• Translate a given high-level program to assembly/machine language
  • Represent numbers, characters, and other forms of data in binary
  • Express logic using assembly language instructions
  • Utilize registers, the stack, the heap, and the data segment to store data
  • Encode assembly language instructions in machine language format

• Build a CPU out of basic building blocks such as gates and flip-flops
  • Build the ALU using gates and Verilog
  • Design the CPU's datapath and control
  • Implement a pipeline and handle its hazards
  • Augment the CPU with a cache

• Assess the end-to-end performance
  • Identify the key performance drivers and their physical limits
  • Compare and contrast the RISC and CISC approaches
  • Compute the throughput of a pipelined CPU for a given code fragment
  • Analyze the effect of a cache of a given specs on the system's performance

• Instructor: Gulzar Khuwaja

• Lectures: R 7:00-10:00 pm in CLH M (206)
• Lab-01: M 7:00-10:00 pm in LAS 1006

• Office Hours: R 5:00–6:30 pm in LAS 2018
• Office Phone: (416) 736-2100 x 77874 (available only during office hours)

• Email: khuwaja@cse.yorku.ca
• Email Filter: The string CSE2021/X in the Subject field, where X is your username on red@cse

TAs are here to help you with any question you may have about the course. You are encouraged to see them in office hours and benefit from their knowledge. The table below shows the TA schedule.

Required (available in the bookstore and on reserve in Steacie):

• Computer Organization and Design, 5th Edition: The Hardware/Software Interface by D. Patterson and J. Hennessy, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers (2014).

References:

• MIPS Assembly Language Programming, by Robert Britton, Pearson Education (2003)
• Structured Computer Organization, 5th edition, by Andrew S. Tanenbaum, Prentice Hall (2006)
• MIPS RISC Architecture, by G. Kane & J. Heinrich, Prentice Hall (1992)
• Computer Organization, 5th Edition, by V.C. Hamacher, Z.G. Vranesic & S.G. Zaky, McGraw-Hill (2002)