Computer Architecture

This is an advanced course on microprocessor (micro-)architecture and related fields.

Literature + course material

o John L. Hennessy and David A. Patterson, Computer architecture A quantitative approach (third edition), Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, Inc., ISBN 1-55860-596-7 or ISBN 1-55860-724-2, 2003.
o Online sheets (note: these can be extended during the course!) can be found here.
o My old syllabus on parallel (and some uni-processor) computer architecture can be found here .

Course schedule

2003,  first semester, block B

This course consists of 7 weeks of lectures and labsessions. 

o Lectures on mondays (G.003) and wednesdays (P.016).
o Lab sessions on mondays (P.126) and wednesdays (P.125) .

Practical assignments

o Assignment 1
o Assignment 2: See /home/andy/ACI on gene for the details.

Exam dates & deadlines

Deadline practical assignment 1:  14 November 2003,  5.00 PM, MET.

Deadline practical assignment 2:  12 December 2003,  5.00 PM, MET.

What to read/study from Hennessy & Patterson for an examination? 

H&P, 2nd edition: Chap.1: read, Chap.2: read, Chap.3: study carefully (just read the case studies), Chap.4:  carefully study 4.1,4.2,4.3,4.4 and 4.6, just read 4.5 and 4.7+onwards, Chap.5: up to (not including) 5.7 study carefully, Chap 6: carefully study 6.3 (*), 6.5 (*), Chap 7: read 7.2 (*), carefully study 7.5 (*),  Chap. 8: carefully study 8.1 (*), 8.3 (*) - but not the performance issues, 8.4 (*) - but not the performance issues, 8.5 (*), study 8.6 (*).

H&P, 3rd edition: Chap. 1: read, Chap. 2: read (study 2.4 and 2.8), carefully study Appendix A, Chap. 3: up to (not including) 3.8 study carefully, read the remainder, Chap. 4: read 4.1, carefully study 4.2, 4.3, and 4.5, read 4.6+onwards, Chap. 5: up to 5.10 and 5.12 study carefully, Chap. 6: study 6.1 (*), carefully study 6.3 (*), 6.5 (*),  6.7 (*), study 6.8 (*),  carefully study 6.9, Chap 7: carefully study 7.3 (*), 7.5 (*),  Chap 8: read 8.2 (*),  study 8.4 (*) (carefully study routing/switching), carefully study 8.5 (*).

(*) = not for the (Dutch) students that -sucessfuly- followed the APR course.

In addition, all other material presented during lectures (see online sheets, this does not include guest lectures) must be studied.

Here you can find a sample examination (it's in Dutch and it was used for the course of last year).

Useful links

o Literature on various ILP issues
o Literature on branch prediction

Contact address

Andy Pimentel
Email: andy (at) science.uva.nl
Phone: +31 (0)20 525 7578