Computer Architecture

Catalog description

The main ambition of this course is to teach you how a modern computer works, starting from its most elementary components (transistors, resistors, capacitors) and then climbing up the ladder of abstraction to reach a high-level programming language like C and its compilation in machine code. In this excursion, we will learn (among other things) how to turn electrons into digital logic, how to make machine instructions execute faster through pipelining and prediction, and how to organize memory in hierarchies in order to make it more efficient. Since the only way to learn computer architecture is by practicing it, we will design a register transfer level (RTL) implementation of a MIPS-like processor in Verilog, and implement a simulator of the very same architecture in C. Preliminary syllabus of the course. General introduction to the course Dataflow and parallelism From silicon to transistors The digital abstraction Number systems Programming in C: basic types and control flow Programming in C: arrays, strings and functions Programming in C: pointers, structures and unions Programming in C: linked lists and beyond Programming in C: the Unix System interface Boolean logic Karnaugh maps Latches and flip-flops Finite state machines Binary and Synchronous Decision Diagrams Programming and simulating in Verilog [part I] Programming and simulating in Verilog [part II] Digital building blocks Compilation from C to MIPS Single-cycle micro-architectures Multi-cycle micro-architectures Pipelining and dependence hazards Out-of-order execution Memory hierarchies and cache Virtual memory Memory models and multiprocessor programming Equivalency: This course counts for CSCI-UA 201 Computer Systems Organization. Prerequisite: CSCI-SHU 101 ICDS or CSCI-SHU 11 ICP or INTM-SHU 101 interaction Lab. Fulfillment: Major: CS Required, CE Required.