Introduction to Computer Architecture

College of Computer Science and Technology, Zhejiang University, Spring 2015
Thursday 08:00 – 11:25/12:15, Cao Guangbiao Building West Wing
Room 201 Lecture, Room 301 Lab

Instructor

Kai Bu	Email: kaibu@zju.edu.cn
Office: Room 503 Zetong Building	Office Hour: by appointment

Thank you for studying Computer Architecture with me.
You are strongly encouraged to read Operating Systems: Three Easy Pieces first.
Hope we could enjoy this course in more of that way.

Course Objective

This course systematically introduces the fundamentals of computer architecture from the perspective of the whole computer system. The main content of this course consists of fundamentals of computer design, instruction set principles, pipelining implementation, memory hierarchy design, and multiprocessors. Students are also expected to practice and master hardware design toolkits through lab sessions. The course objective is that students not only understand the fundamental concepts but also implement a pipelined CPU supporting 31 MIPS instructions in Xilinx ISE environment using Verilog and verify its correctness on FPGA boards.

Textbook

Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach, Fifth Edition, John L. Hennessy and David A. Patterson. Morgan Kaufmann, 2011.

Prerequisites

Computer Organization, Assemble Language, Operating System

Grading

4%	Class participation & performance
16%	Homework
8%	Pop quiz
32%	Lab assignments (4% participation, 4%, 6%, 5%, 5%, 8%)
40%	Final exam (closed-book)
Bonus 5%	Research Warm-up!
Bonus 5%	Active class participation via thoughtful questions or answers with bonus 1% per time

Resources

6.823 Computer System Architecture, by Prof. Daniel Sanchez and Prof. Joel Emer, MIT
CIS 501 Computer Architecture, by Prof. Joe Devietti, University of Pennsylvania
Computer Architecture Tutorial, by Prof. Gurpur Prabhu, Iowa State University
Introduction to Computer Architecture, by Prof. Xiaohong Jiang, Zhejiang University
Computer Architecture, by Prof. Wenzhi Chen, Zhejiang University