Computer Design 2008–09
Principal lecturer: Dr Simon Moore Taken by: Part IB Syllabus
Past exam questions
Aims
The aims of this course are to introduce the hardware/software interface models and the hardware structures used in designing computers.
The first seven lectures are concerned with the hardware/software interface and cover the programmer's model of the computer. The
last nine lectures look at the hardware inplementation issues at a register transfer level.
Structure
This is a 14 lecture course (over 16 lecture slots) lectured by Simon Moore. The course is split into two parts.
Part I - The Hardware/Software Interface
The first part of this course covers the programmer's model of the computer.
Lectures:
- Introduction to the course and some background history
- Historic machines: EDSAC vs. Manchester Mark I
- Introduction to RISC processor design and the MIPS instruction set
- MIPS tools and code examples
- Operating system support + memory hierarchy & management
- Intel x86 instruction set
- Java Virtual Machine
- Memory hierarchy (caching, etc.)
Part II - Hardware Structures
The second part of this course looks at hardware implementation issues
at a register transfer level. Note that this updated schedule of lectures is
slightly different from the published syllabus.
Lectures:
- Executing instructions - an algorithmic viewpoint
- Simplified MIPS in SystemVerilog
- Pipelining
- Communication on and off chip
- Many-core processors
- Data-flow processors & comments on future directions
Errata and Additions
Recommended books
- Harris, D.M. & Harris, S.L. (2007). Digital Design and Computer Architecture. Morgan Kaufmann.
- Hennessy, J.L. & Patterson, D.A. (2002). Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach. Morgan Kaufmann (3rd ed.).
- Hennessy, J.L. & Patterson, D.A. (1998). Compuer Organization and Design. Morgan Kaufmann (2nd ed., as an alternative to
the above).
Handouts and workshops
- Copies of the handouts will be made available at the first
lecture and subsequently from the Student Administrator at the
Computer Laboratory. Please note that the handouts only give an
outline of the course. Annotations and additional examples are given
in the lectures.
- If paper copies of the handouts are not available for some
reason, the PDF of
the notes is here for people inside the cam.ac.uk domain.
- Architecture workshops for Part IB students.
Links
Links used in Lecture 6:
Other links:
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