COURSE TITLE: ECE 362 Computer Architecture Project

CATALOG DESCRIPTION: Quarter long team project that entails designing a processor for a complete Instruction Set. Involves ISA design, design of components, datapath and control for a pipelined processor to implement the ISA. The design is performed using industry strength design tools and VHDL is used as the design specification language. The design is evaluated using benchmark programs for correctness and performance.

REQUIRED TEXTS:

D. Patterson and J. Hennessey, Computer Organization and Design: The Hardware/Software Interface, Morgan Kaufmann, 3rd edition, 2004.

Sailer and Kaeli, The DLX Instruction Set Architecture Handbook, Morgan Kaufmann.

REFERENCE TEXTS:

J. Hennessey and D. Patterson, Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach, Morgan Kaufmann, Third edition, 2002.

COURSE COORDINATORS: Alok Choudhary

COURSE GOALS: To learn designing and implementing processor architecture and learn to work in design teams. To understand the design process based on requirements and then implementing and evaluating the design using tools.

PREREQUISITES: ECE 361

PREREQUISITES BY TOPIC:

1. Instruction Set Architecture

2. Understanding adders, multipliers and dividers

3. Datapath, Control, Pipelining

DETAILED COURSE TOPICS:

Week 1: Form teams. Understand project. Learn instruction set for which processor will be designed.

Week 2: Each team presents a "first" plan for the processor design, validation and evaluation. Begin to assign OPCODES to ISA.

Week 3: Present a refined plan of processor. Start implementing components for ALU and control using design tools and VHDL.

Week 4: Present the progress in previous week and describe how the problems faced during last week were solved. Describe progress on component implementation. Present plan for component integration.

Week 5: Present the progress in previous week and describe how the problems faced during last week were solved. Describe progress on component implementation. Present the final design of the processor including control. Midterm presentations on the design.

Week 6: Present the progress in previous week and describe how the problems faced during last week were solved. Describe progress on component implementation. Demonstrate progress on integration of components. Present the testing of components and overall test and evaluation plan. Adapt application codes to be evaluated.

Week 7: Present the progress in previous week and describe how the problems faced during last week were solved. Describe progress on integration. Demonstrate the current design for initial evaluation.

Week 8: Present the progress in previous week and describe how the problems faced during last week were solved. Demonstrate simple programs running against the processor simulator (written in VHDL).

Week 9: Present the progress in previous week and describe how the problems faced during last week were solved. Demonstrate bug fixes and performance enhancements.

Week 10: Present the progress in previous week and describe how the problems faced during last week were solved. Demonstrate the final design against benchmark programs, Present the overall design report.

COMPUTER USAGE: Students use Mentor Graphics design tools and VHDL to implement a pipelined processor.

PROJECT: The class is a quarter long team project to design a pipelined processor.

GRADES:

Homeworks/Weekly Presentations - 25 %

Project-Final Design - 75 %

COURSE OBJECTIVES: When a student completes this course, s/he should be able to:

1. Understand the design process for computers and learn how to work in teams to achieve the goals of the project.

2. Understand the architecture of a basic computer system and its components, and the role of performance in designing computer systems.

3. Understand how to design and instruction set and its impact on processor design. To design ALU and processor datapath and control. Design pipeline processor including datapath and control, and design to detect and resolve hazards.

4. Understand how to use CAD tools to design a processor.

ABET CONTENT CATEGORY: 100% Engineering (Design component).