Readings | Lectures | Assignments | Projects | Resources
| Instructor: | Alok Choudhary | choudhar(AT)ece.northwestern.edu |
| Office Hours: T 3:00-4:00 in L469 or by Appointment | ||
| TAs: | Avery Ching | aching(AT)ece.northwestern.edu |
| Office Hours: W 1:00-4:00 in L460 or by Appointment | ||
| Kenin Coloma | kcoloma(AT)ece.northwestern.edu | |
| Office Hours: TTh 2:00-3:30 in L460 or by Appointment | ||
| Class Info: | TTh 11:00-12:20 | Tech. M128 |
Textbook: D. Patterson and J. Hennessy,
Computer Organization and Design: The Hardware/Software Interface
Midterm: November 17
| 11/29/05 |
November 1st Demo Times:
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| 11/08/05 | Assignment 4 has been posted. Be sure to at least take a look at it before the midterm. It is due Nov. 22nd | ||||||||||||
| 11/08/05 | Office hours for next week are canceled for Avery and Kenin as they will be out of town for a conference. | ||||||||||||
| 11/02/05 | There's a
small adjustment to homework 3 problem 3. The assignment links
have been updated with the change. The major changes have
been underlined here and should read: Your friends at C3 (Creative Computer Corporation) have determined that the critical path that sets the clock cycle length of the multicycle datapath is memory access for loads and stores (not for instructions). This has caused their newest implementation of the MIPS 30000 to run at a clock rate of 500 MHz rather than the target clock rate of 750 MHz. However, Clara at C3 has a solution. If all the cycles that access memory are broken into two clock cycles, then the machine can run at its target clock rate. Using the gcc mixes shown in Table 1, determine how much faster the machine with the two-cycle memory accesses is compared with the 500-MHz machine with single-cycle memory access. Assume that all jumps and branches take the same number of cycles and that the set instructions and arithmetic immediate instructions are implemented as R-type instructions. | ||||||||||||
| 11/02/05 | Assignment 3 is out and is due Nov. 10th. | ||||||||||||
| 11/01/05 | The Final Project is out and is due during the class period on December 1st. Please do not overlook the fact that there is a write-up due in addition to the demo. | ||||||||||||
| 10/20/05 | Assigment 2 is out and is due at the beginning of class November 1st. | ||||||||||||
| 10/13/05 | Issues resolved with Mentor Graphics 2004. You can make the switch to MGC 2004 at your leisure, I don't think there are any interoperability issues for the final project if one person in the group is using 2004 and the rest are using C4. Anyhow, to use MGC 2004, please use the new ~kcoloma/mgc_2004.env. To find gen_lib, open a schematic, and go through the Libraries menu and select Generic Libraries. | ||||||||||||
| 10/13/05 | There seem to be issues with Mentor Graphics 2004, so for the ALU project, please use ~kcoloma/mgc_c4.env. If you're running MGC remotely, see the setup page for the MGC C4 fonts. Sorry about the change. | ||||||||||||
| 10/11/05 | One more quick clarification for the last problem in Assignment 1. The CPI being referred to as not changing is the overall effective CPI, not the individual average CPI's for each instruction type. | ||||||||||||
| 10/11/05 | Lab 1 is posted. It is due two weeks from now on 10/25. Also, just a reminder, Assignment 1 is due this Thursday, Oct. 13. | ||||||||||||
| 9/28/05 | Assignment 1 is up. It is due next Thursday, Oct. 13. Note that for the third edition of the textbook, you may need to refer to the included supplemental material cd. | ||||||||||||
| 9/28/05 | Updated Midterm Exam date. It's on November 17th during class, and it's open book/open notes. | ||||||||||||
| 9/22/05 | Apparently there is a new version of the Mentor Graphics Suite. To use it, you may optionally copy, but at least source the file ~kcoloma/mgc_2004.env. Everything else should be the same in the tutorial. If you'd like to run MGC from a remote X-server, follow the directions here. | ||||||||||||
| 9/22/05 | |||||||||||||
| 9/20/05 | Welcome to Computer Architecture! Website's up! Enjoy. Don't forget that this thursday's class will be in Wilkinson. Please print and bring the "New" Tutorial. |
| Topic | 2nd Edition | 3rd Edition |
|---|---|---|
| Introduction and Metrics | Chapters 1 and 2 | Chapters 1 and 4 |
| Instruction Set Architecture | Chapter 3 sections 3.1-3.11, 3.13, 3.14 | Chapter 2 sections 2.1-2.10, 2.13, 2.15, 2.17, 2.18 |
| Arithmetic | Chapter 4 sections 4.1-4.8 | Chapter 3 sections 3.1-3.6 |
| Datapath & Control | Chapter 5 sections 5.1-5.4 | Chapter 5 sections 5.1-5.5 |
| Pipelining | Chapter 6 sections 6.1-6.6 | Chapter 6 sections 6.1-6.6 | Caching | Chapter 7 sections 7.1-7.5 | Chapter 7 sections 7.1-7.5 |
| Lecture | Topic | Download |
|---|---|---|
| Lecture 1 | Introduction | pdf, ppt |
| Lecture 2 | Performance | pdf, ppt |
| Lecture 3 | ISA | pdf, ppt |
| Lecture 4 | MIPS ISA | pdf, ppt |
| Lecture 5 | ALU Design | pdf, ppt |
| Lecture 6 | ALU (cont.) | pdf, ppt |
| Lecture 7 | ALU: Division | pdf, ppt |
| Lecture 8 | Single Cycle Datapath | pdf, ppt |
| Lecture 9 | Single Cycle Control | pdf, ppt |
| Lecture 10 | Multi Cycle Datapath | pdf, ppt |
| Lecture 11 | Multi Cycle Control | pdf, ppt |
| Lecture 12 | Pipelined Processor | pdf, ppt |
| Lecture 13 | Pipelined Control | pdf, ppt |
| Lecture 14 | Cache | pdf, ppt |
| Lecture 15 | Cache (cont.) | pdf, ppt |
| Lecture 16 | Memory | pdf, ppt |
| Lecture 17 | Virtual Memory | pdf, ppt |
| Assignment | Due Date |
|---|---|
| Assignment 1 | Oct. 13th |
| Assignment 2, Figure 1, Figure 2a, Figure 2b |
Nov. 1st |
| Assignment 3, Figure 1, Figure 2, Figure 3 |
Nov. 10th |
| Assignment 4 | Nov. 22nd |
Late Policy: 25% of max points deducted per day late
| Project | Due Date |
|---|---|
| ALU Project | Oct. 25 |
| MIPS Project | Dec. 1 |