~~NOTOC~~
====== Computer Architecture  ======

====== Description  ======

This course presents the core concepts of computer architecture and
design ideas embodied in many machines, and emphasises a quantitative
approach to cost/performance tradeoffs. This course concentrates on
uniprocessor systems. A few machines are studied to illustrate how these
concepts are implemented; how various tradeoffs that exist among design
choices are treated; and how good designs make efficient use of
technology. Future trends in computer architecture are also discussed.
Topics covered may include fundamentals of computer design;
performance and cost; instruction set design and measurements of use;
pipeline design techniques; memory-hierarchy design; Input-output
subsystems;

====== Learning outcomes for the course: ======

Upon the completion of this course, the student should be able to


  - Design cache, memory hierarchy, and virtual memory using different techniques to improve cost/performance ratio.
  - Demonstrate how dynamic scheduling and speculative execution can improve the system performance and explain how it is implemented in modern processors.
  - Evaluate different design alternatives and make quantitative/qualitative argument for one design over the other.
  - Identity the different types of parallelism (data, instruction, thread, transaction) for a given application.
  - Compare and evaluate different techniques (such as multithreading, multicore, or vector) to improve CPU performance.

===== Lecture Times =====

  * Section E: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 10:00am - 11:15pm, HNE 031