Computer Organization

Catalog description

This course provides computer science and engineering students with an in-depth look at computer architecture and the hardware/software interface. The major topics are: computer abstractions and technology; the role of performance and measuring performance; SPEC, computer arithmetic; machine language; a comparative analysis of instruction sets of current processors using debuggers, simulators and by the partial reverse engineering of executables. The processor: datapath and control; RISC vs CISC; design, implementation (using VHDL), and verification (in simulation) of a simplified RISC processor using CAD tools. Enhancing performance with pipelining. Memory hierarchy, cache, virtual memory, performance issues, interfacing processors and peripherals; PCI chipset. Overview of multiprocessors, grid computing.