cs470 - Fall 2007

Textbook

Grading

• Homeworks: 21%
• Laboratory: 21%
• Midterm: 25%
• Final: 33%

Work you have to turn is is due as follows:

• Pre-lab: at the beginning of the lab
• In-lab: at the end of the lab session
• Post-lab: at the beginning of next lab session for your section
• Homework: submit your work work on the Blackboard before midnight the day the homework is due. Here are the requirements for your Blackboard submission:
• The name of the file should be: firstName-lastName-HW-assignmentNumber.zip (e.g. Jane-Doe-HW-1.zip)
• Include your e-mail address in the Comment field when submitting the assignment through the Digital Drop Box
• If for any reason you are submitting the assignment more than once, indicate this in the Comment field by including the word COMPLEMENT

For late submittal there is a 10% per calendar day penalty.

Exams are open-book(s) open-notes.

The following grading scale will be used to determine your grade in this class:

• A: 90 - 100
• B: 80 - 89
• C: 70 - 79
• D: 60 - 69
• E: 0 - 59 This is a failing grade!

Class attendance and participation will help settle the borderline grades. Regular class attendance is important and students are expected to actively participate in class: questions and comments are always welcome.

Extra Credit

There are multiple ways you can receive extra credit in this class, here are some:

• Take class notes: scan them and return them to your instructor after each class in PDF format. If you take notes electronically, then turn in to your instructor a copy of your notes, .txt, .pdf, .odf, .doc formats ok.
  • Maximum extra credit: 4 points that will be added to the average class score (scale from one to 100)
  • If you want to get this extra credit, then you'll have to commit to turning in notes for each class.
  • In addition, your instructor will have to confirm upfront that you are eligible for this extra credit since only one student in class can get it.
• Provide feedback on the lab manual: the manual was written for SPIM running on a UNIX platform; however you may be running SPIM in a MS-Win environment and there are differences in behavior between the two. You get credit for recommending changes to the lab manual that will accomodate the MS-Win platform.
• Maximum extra credit: 7 points that will be added to the average class score (scale from one to 100).
• Recommend new labs for the class. Your recommendation should be original and non-trivial and should detail what would be covered in pre-lab, in-lab and post-lab. If you're not sure what original and non-trivial mean, then talk to your instructor.
• Extra credit: 2 points per accepted recommendation. All extra credit will be added to the average class score (scale from one to 100).
• Recommend problems to be included in the midterm or final. You'll get credit for submitting a good problem. Your submission should be original and non-trivial.
• Extra credit: 2 points per accepted recommendation. All points that will be added to the average class score (scale from one to 100).
• The credit will be doubled for each problem that's included in the exam.
• Turn in (attach to your final exam) the paper for extra credit on topics assigned in class by your instructor. This assignment can boost your final exam mark by up to 10%.

Topics

1. Introduction: discuss class structure, objectives, and requirements (1 hour)
2. Overview and history of computer architecture (1 hour)
3. Fundamentals of computer design (3 hours)
• Latency, throughput
• Comparing performance
• Design drivers: common case, Amdahl's law, locality
• MIPS, MPFLOS, benchmarking
4. Basic organization of a von Neumann computer (1 hour)
• Control unit, main memory, I/O
• Instruction execution: fetch, decode, execute
5. Instruction Set design (3 hours)
• Instruction Set architectures: 0 (stack), 1 (accumulator), 2, and 3-address
• Fixed v. variable length instruction sets
• Memory v. register
• Addressing modes
• Flow control instructions
• Interrupts and I/O
6. Datapath and Control (4 hours)
• Single v. multi clock-cycle datapath
• Control unit: hardwired v. microprogramming
• Exceptions
7. Pipelining (4 hours)
• Pipeline performance
• Data and control hazards; resolving hazards
• Exceptions
8. The memory hierarchy (4 hours)
• Cache
• Main memory organization
• Virtual memory
• TLB
9. I/O (3 hours)
• I/O performance measures
• Types and characteristics of I/O devices
• Buses
10. Midterm exam (2 hours)
11. Final exam (2 hours)
12. Project presentation (2 hours)

Lab Schedule

The instructor for this class reserves the right to change this schedule.

Important Events

The instructor for this class reserves the right to change this schedule.