Professor: Manish Vachharajani
Fall 2009 Office Hours:TBD, or by appointment
Textbook: Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach by John Hennessy and David Patterson. Morgan-Kaufmann, Publishers, Inc. 4th Edition
This course will cover the design of advanced microprocessors and computing systems. Topics will include pipeline processor design, superscalar processor design, out-of-order execution, simultaneous multithreading, memory subsystem design and basic multiprocessor system design. The course will present each design concept from the perspective of application performance and chip-design considerations (complexity, clock-rate, etc.). At the conclusion of the course students should be able to optimize C code for improved performance on modern processors as well as appreciate the design challenges faced by today's computer architects.
Anyone who is interested in understanding modern high-performance processor and multiprocessor design, and anyone interested in understanding the issues involved in programming them efficiently.
ECEN4593 or equivalent experience or course. A good understanding of C and assembly language programming.