CMSC 611 Computer Architecture Syllabus

Class schedule, topic and assignments

Tuesday and Thursday, 7:00pm to 8:15pm in ACIV 014


Lec Date  Subject                                 Reading     Homework
                                                              assigned due
 1. 8/31  Introduction, overview                  1.1-1.8     HW1
 2. 9/5   overview, review CMSC 411               1.1-1.8
 3. 9/7   benchmarking, performance          skim 2.1-2.8     HW2      HW1
 4. 9/12  basic pipelining  DLX                   3.1-3.7     
 5. 9/14  more pipelining (examples)              3.1-3.7     HW3      HW2
 6. 9/19  dependences, scoreboard, Tomasulo       4.1-4.7
 7. 9/21  branch prediction                       4.1-4.7     HW4      HW3
                   McFarling "Combining Branch Predictors"
 8. 9/26  VLIW, register renaming, speculation    4.1-4.8
 9. 9/28  memory wall, caches                     5.1-5.4
10. 10/3  more cache, virtual memory              5.5-5.10    HW5      HW4
11. 10/5  VHDL 1 Structure and Statements   WEB or Ashenden     
12. 10/10 VHDL 2 Examples and Simulation
13. 10/12 floating point arithmetic              IEEE 754     HW6      HW5
14. 10/17 Review
15. 10/19 Midterm Quiz
16. 10/24 floating point implementation         Appendix A
17. 10/26 project ideas, 5.11 pitfalls            WEB 5.11
18. 10/31 Storage systems                         6.1-6.5
19. 11/2  Storage systems                         6.1-6.5              HW6
20. 11/7  Processor in Memory, PIM, no cache   Conf. Paper    HW7
           vote before coming to class
21. 11/9  Interconnection                        7.1-7.10
22. 11/14 Interconnections                       7.1-7.2               HW7
23. 11/16 Architecture Comparisons              Handouts 
24. 11/21 Architecture Comparisons              Handouts
25. 11/28 multi processors                       8.1-8.11     HW8
26. 11/30 distributed vs centralized memory      8.1-8.11
27. 12/5  Cache coherence                       Appendix E             HW8
28. 12/7  vector machines, timing, stride       Appendix B            
29. 12/12 Review                                                       Project
30. 12/19 Final Exam, Tuesday December 19, 8:30pm-10:30pm no other!

Other links

Last updated 11/27/00