#Learning Objectives This course aims to develop understanding in the advanced design principles of a computer system by addressing key issues such as instruction set design, micro-architecture of scalar and superscalar processors along with the interaction of other hardware components in a computer system. This course aids you to acquire necessary skills for analysing and estimating the performance of computing systems. In this course, there is a strong emphasis on the study of various constraints in the design of single and multi-processor systems. Students will complete this course with an appreciation and understanding of processor design issues relating to simplicity of implementation, performance-enhancement techniques, and power-reduction methods.

Learning Outcome

Upon the successful completion of this course students would be able to:

  1. Interpret the performance of a processor based on metrics such as execution time, cycles per instruction (CPI), Instruction count etc.

  2. Differentiate between pipeline and non-pipeline processor architecture.

  3. Predict the challenges of realizing different kinds of parallelism (such as instruction, data and thread level) and leverage them for performance advancement for the present, and in the future.

  4. Apply concept of memory hierarchy for efficient memory design and virtual memory to overcome memory wall.

  5. Learn to write high performance programs by taking into consideration data-path, memory design and parallelism at instruction, data and thread level.

  6. Explore emerging computing trends, different computing platforms, various design trade- offs.

Course Content

  1. Introduction and background: Review of basic computer architecture, technology trend and design goals, performance metrics and performance enhancement techniques, key concepts of parallel processing and pipelining, power dissipation in processors, power metrics, and low-power design techniques.

  2. Instruction set architecture design: Implementation and performance perspectives, relative advantages of RISC and CISC instruction sets, relation of ISA to assembly, and to compiler, instruction formats and addressing modes.

  3. Micro-architecture design: Single and multi-cycle data path design, hardwired and micro- programmed control design, pipeline data-path.

  4. Memory systems and I/O design: Memory hierarchy, Cache design considerations, instruction vs. data caches, write-policy and replacement policy, analysis of cache performance, and cache design for performance enhancement, memory technologies (SRAM, DRAM, and flash memory), virtual memory, TLB.

  5. Instruction-level parallelism: Concept and examples of data-dependence, challenges in ILP realization, pipeline hazards and their solutions, data forwarding, register renaming, reordering of instructions, out-of-order execution, branch prediction, dynamic scheduling, limitations of scalar pipelines, VLIW and superscalar processors.

  6. Data-level parallelism: Introduction to vector architecture, SIMD instruction set extensions, GPU architecture.

  7. Thread-level parallelism: Motivation for multicore and many-core systems, Amdahl‟s law under power constraint, challenges in efficient multi-core system design, Cache coherence problem.

  8. Emerging computing trends: Application specific architectures: ASIP, FPGA and ASIC, heterogeneous multicore platform, introduction to domain-specific computing, comparison of performances and power consumption of general purpose processors, DSP, GPU, FPGA, and ASIC.

Textbooks

i. J.L.Hennessy, D.A.Patterson, Computer Architecture: a quantitative approach, Morgan Kaufmann, 5th edition, 2011, ISBN: 978-1558605961.

ii. William Stallings, Computer Organization and Architecture, Prentice Hall, 10th edition, 2015, ISBN-10: 013293633X, ISBN-13: 978-0132936330

References

i. Andrew S. Tanenbaum, Structured Computer Organization, Prentice Hall, 6th edition, 2012, ISBN: 978-0132916523.

ii. Patterson, J.L. Hennessy, Computer Organization and Design: The Hardware/Software Interface, Morgan Kaufmann, 5th edition, 2013, ISBN-13: 9780124078864

iii. C. Hamacher, Z. Vranesic and S. Zaky, Computer Organization, McGraw-Hill, 5th edition,2002, ISBN: 0072320869.

Past Offerings

  • Offered in July-Dec, 2019 by Vivek
  • Offered in July-Dec, 2018 by Vivek

Course Metadata

Item Details
Course Title Advanced Computer Architecture
Course Code CS4505
Course Credits 3-0-0-3
Course Category PME
Approved on Senate of IIT Palakkad