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EECS 4213 Computer Architecture

Table of contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Catalog Description
  3. Textbook
  4. Topics Covered
  5. Class/Assigned Readings
  6. Office Hours
  7. Course Outcomes
  8. Lectures
  9. Homework

Introduction

Welcome to EECS 4213 Computer Architecture. It is truly an exciting time to study computer architecture as we are about to engage in a major change in how computers are built! In this class you will first become familiar with how to measure performance and understand current trends in how the industry is building computers. Then, you will study important architecture techniques that the computer industry has developed over the last 20 years for delivering generational performance increases through exploiting parallelism at the instruction, thread, and data level. Finally you will study architectures emerging to accelerate todays data intensive machine learning applications.

Catalog Description

The architecture of modern scalar and parallel computing systems. Techniques for dynamic instruction scheduling, branch prediction, instruction level parallelism, shared and distributed memory multiprocessor systems, array processors, and memory hierarchies. Prerequisite CSCE 2214

Textbook

Computer Architecture. A Quantitative Approach. Sixth Edition, by David A. Patterson and John L. Hennessy, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, Inc., 2019.

Topics Covered

  • Technology trends and Performance Evaluation
  • Instruction Level parallelism
  • Branch Prediction, Dynamic Scheduling, Hardware Speculation
  • Limitations of Instruction-Level Parallelism
  • Multithreading and Thread Level Parallelism
  • Symmetric Shared-Memory Architectures Performance and Synchronization
  • Distributed Shared Memory and Directory Based Coherence
  • Vector Processors
  • SIMD Extensions
  • Graphics Processor Units (GPUs)
  • Memory Hierarchies

Class/Assigned Readings

  • Lecture meets M/W/F 3:05 - 3:55 Bell 2267
  • Readings posted for a week represent the material that will be covered for that week. Part of your preparation for the week is to have performed a first reading of the material in order to familiarize yourself with the topics that will be covered.

Office Hours

  • Professor: David Andrews M-W-F 2:00 - 2:50 JBHT 527
  • TA: Tendayi Kamucheka Tues/Thurs 2:00 - 3:30 Virtual via Teams (Link will be provided in class)

Course Outcomes

  • Knowledge of the history and social impact of high performance computing
  • Knowledge of Computer Architecture
  • Ability to apply knowledge of digital logic and computer organization to the design of a computer system
  • Students are required to apply mathematics in the evaluation of the performance of a computer
  • Students are required to understand the architecture of a computer system

Lectures

Weekly Schedule

Homework

Weekly Schedule