CS382M: Advanced Computer Architecture

This course focuses on the techniques of quantitative analysis and evaluation of modern computing systems, such as the selection of appropriate benchmarks to reveal and compare the performance of alternative design choices in system design. The emphasis is on the major component subsystems of high performance computers: pipelining, instruction level parallelism, memory hierarchies, input/output, and network-oriented interconnections. Students will undertake a major computing system analysis and design project of their own choosing.






Check out the final project reports from the class!




Announcements

2/28/97: On monday we're going to talk about IRAM. Here is some information you may want to look at beforehand. Patterson's IRAM talk. Another talk. IRAM class lecture Patterson's IRAM paper.

2/21/97: My lecture notes are now available on line. They can only be accessed from UT hosts.

1-27-97: Homework 2 has been split into two parts to better match the lecture schedule. Part 1 will be due Friday, Feb 7. Part 2 is due Friday, Feb 14.

1-15-97: The class roster is available. You can use it to send mail to the class or find a homework or project partner.

1-15-97: Some printers have problems with the H&P errata. Qing Zhu got it to print. Here's how.

1-13-97: Class cancelled due to weather and university closing. See you wednesday.






Administrative Information

Unique Number: 47315

Meeting Place: MWF 2-3, WEL 2.304

Instructor: Mike Dahlin

Office Hours: MW 3-4 or by appointment, TAY 4.136

TA: Jing Jane Zhao (jingzhao@cs.utexas.edu)

Office Hours: WF 10:00-11:00, Taylor basement, station #4.

Class roster and mailing list.


Readings

Textbook: Hennessy and Patteson Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach, Second Edition

Note that the 2nd edition is significantly different than the 1st edition, and it is not recommended that you attempt to use the 1st edition as a textbook for this course.

Errata Sheet for Hennessy & Patterson

Additional reading: Selected chapters from Culler and Singh Parallel Computer Architecture (Alpha draft)

Grading

10% Class Participation

30% Homework (Work in pairs)

30% Exams (2 midterms)

30% Project (Work in pairs)






Course Schedule

Week Date Topic Reading Due
1 Jan 13 Intro, Admin, Review: Perf/Cost, Amdahl's Law, Tech Trends Ch 1,2
2 Jan 20 Caching and Memory, ISAs, Pipelining, Hazards and Branch Prediction Ch 3 M: MLK Holiday

F: HW 1

3 Jan 27 Pipelining, Hazards, and Static Branch Prediction Ch 4 F: Project Topic
4 Feb 3 ILP: Scoreboarding, Tomasulu, Speculation F: HW 2 Part 1
5 Feb 10 ILP: Dynamic Prediction, Limits of ILP, Vector Processors Ch B F: HW 2 Part 2
6 Feb 17 Memory Hierarchy Ch 5 F: Project Proposal
7 Feb 24 Memory DRAM, VM, and Banks F: HW 3
8 Mar 3 Memory and Review W: Midterm 1

6-9pm Tay 2.106

Mar 10 Spring Break M-F: Spring Break
9 Mar 17 I/O: Metrics, Queuing, Busses, Disks, RAID Ch 6
10 Mar 24 I/O: Tertiary, Networks F: HW 4
11 Mar 31 Networks Ch 7 F: Project Checkpoint
12 Apr 7 Networks, Parallel Architectures F: HW 5
13 Apr 14 MPPs Ch 8
14 Apr 21 MPPs, Review W: Midterm 2

6-9pm TAY 2.106

15 Apr 28 Project Presentations M/W/F: Project Presentations

Fri: Last Day of Classes

M: Written Project Report

Slides with extra information from lectures






Project

Project Guidelines

Project presentation guidelines.

Important deadlines




Additional Resources

Course Pages

Tools, Traces, and Benchmarks

Products and Research

Conferences, Bibliographies, and Tech Reports

Yahoo: Business and Economy:Companies:Computers:Systems