Advanced Computer Architectures

Lecturer:

Jan Schmidt

Tutor:

Jan Schmidt

Supervisor:

Department of Computer Science and Engineering

Synopsis:

The course extends the student's knowledge in the area of contemporary computer architecture. Main discussed topics are the architecture of contemporary processors exploiting instruction and thread level parallelism, advanced pipelining and its consequences for the compiler, memory and peripheral subsystems and their optimal design. A quantitative approach is applied to the system description and its evaluation from the point of view of its price and performance.

Requirements:

Students are required to solve semestral project, attend mandatory seminars and pass the exam.

Syllabus of lectures:

1. Introduction to computer architecture, basic terms and trends

2. Pipelined RISC processor architecture

3. Pipelining of complex instructions, precise exception

4. Staticaly scheduled superscalar processors

5. Dynamicaly scheduled superscalar processors

6. Compiler code generation and optimization techniques, VLIW and EPIC architectures

7. Advanced design of cache and virtual memory

8. Design of system architecture, main memory subsystem, multiprocessor support

9. Problem of coherency in memory hierarchy

10. Memory consistency models, ordering of memory operations

11. Limits of ILP, multithreaded architectures

12. Peripheral devices and system architecture, interface data transfer

13. Data paths sharing, queues, caches in pripheral system,

their influence on throughput and latency

14. Future perspectives of computer architecture

Syllabus of tutorials:

1. Introduction - semestral project assignments

2. Compiler use of ISA

3. Simulator of pipelined processor

4. Optimization algorithms for pipelined processors

5. Simulator of superscalar processor

6. Semestral projects: position presentation, discussion

7.- 11. Semestral projects - individual work

12.-13. Semestral projects - final presentation

14. Spare, evaluation, assessment

Study Objective:

Study materials:

1. Hennesy, J. L., Patterson, D. A.: Computer Architecture : A Quantitative Approach, Third Edition, San Francisco, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, Inc., 2002

2. Dezso Sima et. al. Advanced Computer Architectures : A Design Space Approach, New York, Addison Wesley Longman Inc. 1997

3. Shen, J.P., Lipasti, M.H.: Modern Processor Design : Fundamentals of Superscalar Processors, First Edition, New York, McGraw-Hill Inc., 2004

4. Shriver, B.D., Smith B.:The Anatomy of a High-Performance Microprocessor: A System Perspective, Los Alamitos, IEEE Computer Society, 1998

Note:

Further information:

No time-table has been prepared for this course

The course is a part of the following study plans:

• Electronics - Electronic Systems- structured studies (compulsory elective course)
• Electronics - Electronic Applications- structured studies (compulsory elective course)
• Electronics - Electronics and Photonics- structured studies (compulsory elective course)
• Computer Technology - Designing Digital Systems- structured studies (compulsory course of the branch)