Prerequisite courses: none, but Operating Systems, Digital Electronics and ECAD would be helpful
This course is a prerequisite for the Part II courses Comparative Architectures and VLSI Design.
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 hardware implementation
issues at a register transfer level.
Lectures
Introduction to the course and some background history.
Historic machines. EDSAC versus Manchester Mark I.
Introduction to RISC processor design and the ARM instruction set.
ARM tools and code examples.
Operating system support
including memory hierarchy and management.
Intel x86 instruction set.
Java Virtual Machine.
Memory hierarchy (caching).
Executing instructions. An algorithmic viewpoint.
Basic processor hardware. Pipelining and data paths.
Extending the ARM pipeline including load and branch delay slots.
Implementation of a MIPS processor [3 lectures].
Internal and external communication.
Data-flow and comments on future directions.
Objectives
At the end of the course students should
be able to read assembler given a guide to the instruction set
and be able to write short pieces of assembler if given an
instruction set or asked to invent an instruction set
understand the differences between RISC and CISC assembler
understand what facilities a processor provides to support
operating systems, from memory management to software interrupts
understand memory hierarchy including different cache
structures
appreciate the use of pipelining in processor design
understand the communications structures, from buses close to
the processor, to peripheral interfaces
have an appreciation of control structures used in processor design
have an appreciation of how to implement a processor in Verilog
Recommended reading
* Hennessy, J.L. & Patterson, D.A. (2002). Computer architecture: a quantitative approach. Morgan Kaufmann (3rd ed.). (2nd ed., 1996, is also good.)
Patterson, D.A. & Hennessy, J.L. (2004). Computer organization and design. Morgan Kaufmann (3rd ed., as an alternative to the above). (2nd ed., 1998, is also good.)
Pointers to sources of more specialist information are included in the
lecture notes and on the associated course web page.
