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.
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.
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.
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.
10% Class Participation
30% Homework (Work in pairs)
30% Exams (2 midterms)
30% Project (Work in pairs)
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 |
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 presentation guidelines.
Important deadlines