next up previous contents
Next: Information Retrieval Up: Lent Term 2003: Part Previous: Advanced Systems Topics   Contents


Comparative Architectures

Lecturer: Dr I.A. Pratt (ian.pratt@cl.cam.ac.uk)

No. of lectures: 16

Prerequisite course: Computer Design

Aims

This course examines the architecture and implementation of state-of-the-art microprocessors and memory systems. It begins by examining the different design goals that microprocessors are developed for, and discusses the difficulties associated with making objective performance comparisons.

Features of a number of popular Instruction Set Architectures are compared and contrasted, with particular attention to their effects on implementation and hence performance. The second half of the course addresses micro-architecture implementation issues, examining how Instruction Level Parallelism can be exploited through deep pipelining and super-scalar techniques such as out-of-order execution. Issues in memory hierarchy design are explored, and the impact they have on code optimisation. Finally, muti-processors architectures are examined.

Lectures

Objectives

At the end of the course students should

Recommended books

Hennessy, J. & Patterson, D. (2002). Computer Architecture: a Quantitative Approach. Morgan Kaufmann (3rd ed.) ISBN 1-55860-724-2. (2nd edition, 1996, is also good.)

Further reading and reference:

Johnson, M. (1991). Superscalar Microprocessor Design. Prentice-Hall.
Markstein, P. (1990). IA-64 and Elementary Functions. Prentice-Hall.
Tannenbaum, A.S. (1990). Structured Computer Organization. Prentice-Hall (2nd ed.).
Van Someren, A. & Atack, C. (1994). The ARM RISC Chip: a Programmer's Guide. Addison-Wesley.
Sites, R.L. (ed.) (1992). Alpha Architecture Reference Manual. Digital Press.
Kane, G. & Heinrich, J. (1992). MIPS RISC Architecture. Prentice-Hall.
The CPU Info Center http://infopad.eecs.berkeley.edu/CIC/tech/


next up previous contents
Next: Information Retrieval Up: Lent Term 2003: Part Previous: Advanced Systems Topics   Contents
Christine Northeast
Wed Sep 4 14:43:05 BST 2002