cse141: Introduction to Computer Architecture

Warren Lecture Hall 2113
Lectures Tue. & Thu., 3:30p-4:50p (Warren Lecture Hall 2113) ; Disc. section Wed. 4:00p-4:50p (Warren Lecture Hall 2111)
Spring, 2009
Shortcuts: Schedule Homeworks Projects

Instructor

Steven Swanson

Email:

swanson

cs.ucsd.edu

IM (not email): professorswanson@{AIM, Yahoo!, google talk, MS Messenger}
Office: EBU3B 3212
Office Hours: Tues. 9:15-10:15 (starting April 14) ; Thur. 12:30-1:30
UCSD homepage

Teaching Assistant

Hung-Wei Tseng

Email:

h1tseng

cs.ucsd.edu

IM (not email): bunnyhwtseng@AIM
Office: EBU3B B260A
Office Hours: Monday 4:00p-5:00p, Wednesday 11:00a-12:00p(starting May 13), or by appointment
UCSD homepage

Course discussion board: cse141. Required reading. Get signed up. Note: Subscriptions of UCSD email accounts to WebBoard mailing lists may not work correctly at this time.

Course Description

This course will describe the basics of modern processor operation. Topics include computer system performance, instruction set architectures, pipelining, branch prediction, memory-hierarchy design, and a brief introduction to multiprocessor architecture issues.

This course is taught in tandem with 141L. Unless you have discussed it with you me, you should be in enrolled in both.

Text books

Required: Patterson & Hennessy, Computer Organization and Design: The Hardware/Software Interface, Patterson & Hennessy, Morgan Kaufmann, 4th Edition
Required: Other assigned readings throughout the quarter.
Optional: The History of Computing This a great set of lectures from a course taught at UCSD/UW/Berkeley three years ago. Most of them are buy the folks that actually made the history (Steve Wozniak, Ray Ozzie, Gordon Bell, etc.).

Grading

In addition to the contributions below, class participation (speaking up in class, attending office hours, etc.) can raise your grade up to one "notch" (e.g., B to B+).

Homework	10%	Homeworks will be assigned through the course. They are due on Thursdays.
Quizzes	10%	Every Thursday there will be a quiz.
Project	15%	Design your own ISA! See below
Midterm	25%	The midterm is on May 5th.
Final	35%	The final will be cummulative.
Class participation	5%	Speak up in class. Contribute to the web board. Come to office hours.

Additional notes about grades in this course:

Calculating grades I compute grades using an Excel spread sheet. In the interests of transparancy, the current grade sheet (with identifying information removed) is avaiable in either XLS or HTML format. The grade sheet contains all the information about curves and how the grades are computed. It is somewhat sophisticated, if you find bugs please bring them to my attention. Please note that some versions of OpenOffice do not perform the calculations properly, and will give incorrect results.

The grading systems is based on a 13 point (F through A+) scale. For each assignment/test/etc, the sheet computes the letter grade (rounding up, when needed) according to a curve for each assignment (specified at the bottom of each assignments column). Your final grade is the weighted average of these grades.

We do our best to record grades accurately, but you should double-check.
Errors in grading If you feel there has been an error in how an assignment or test was graded, you have one week from when the assignment is return to bring it to our attention. You must submit (via email to the instructor and the appropriate TAs) a written description of the problem.

For arithmetic errors (adding up points etc.) you do not need to submit anything in writing, but the one week limit still applies.
Final grades If you have a problem with your final grade in the course, send me email and we can set up an appoinment to discuss it. Like you, I generally go on a vacation after the quarter ends, so it may take a little while for me to get back to you and the meeting will likely be the next quarter. If the problem needs to be resolved sooner make that clear in your email (like in the first line).

Schedule

I will post the slides for most lectures. Since the slides contain material I am not allowed to distribute publically, they are password protected. I have posted the username and password to the web board.

Reading should be done before class on the day they are listed. It is essential that you do the readings. I will not cover everything you are responsible for in class.

Date	Topic	Readings	Slides	Due	Notes
Tuesday, March 31	Introduction and Administrivia		slides
Thursday, April 2	Instruction Set Design	Read: 1.1-1.3; 2.1-2.3, 2.5, 2.7; Skim/Review: 2.4, 2.6	slides
Tuesday, April 7	Instruction Set Design	Read: 2.8, 2.10, 2.12-2.13, 2.17-2.19 Skim/Review: 2.4, 2.6, 2.9, 2.14	slides , slides
Thursday, April 9	Measuring Performance	Read: 1.4-1.9	slides	Assignment 1-1; Assignment 1-2; Assignment 1-3;
Tuesday, April 14	Designing an ISA		slides
Thursday, April 16	Measuring performance	Read: 1.4-1.9	slides	Assignment 2;
Tuesday, April 21	Performance/Single Cycle processors	Read: 4.1-4.4; Key points: Designing a single-cycle datapath, datapath vs. control, clocking, control signals, decoding, handling branches. Review Appendix C if your logic design is rusty.	slides , slides
Thursday, April 23	Single Cycle to Pipelining	Read: 4.5-4.6	slides	Assignment 3-1; Assignment 3-2;
Tuesday, April 28	Data hazards; flash memory	Read: 4.7-4.8	slides	Project 1;
Thursday, April 30	Control hazards	Read: 4.9	slides , slides	Assignment 4;
Monday, May 4	Review sesion. 7pm in cse4140	TBA
Tuesday, May 5	Midterm	TBA
Thursday, May 7	Branch Prediction and Advanced Pipelining	Read: 4.10-4.14, except 4.12	slides	Assignment 5;
Tuesday, May 12	New non-volatile memories and introduction to caching	TBA	slides
Thursday, May 14	Memory Systems	Read: 5.1-5.3	slides	Assignment 6;
Tuesday, May 19	Memory Systems	Read: 5.4-5.5	slides , slides
Thursday, May 21	Virtual Memory	TBA	slides	Assignment 7;
Tuesday, May 26	I/O	6.1-6.13	slides , slides
Thursday, May 28	Multiprocessors	4.10-4.11; 7.5	slides	Assignment 8;
Tuesday, June 2	Multiprocessors	7.1-7.3; 7.7	slides , slides
Thursday, June 4	Wrap up and Final review	TBA	slides	Assignment 9;
Monday, June 8	Final Exam			Assignment 10;	3:00-5:59

Integrity Policy

Cheating WILL be taken seriously. Doing otherwise is not fair to honest students. It is also not fair to allow the cheater to thing that it is a reasonable alternative in life.
Please review the UCSD student handbook for more details on Academic Integrity.
Anyone copying information or having information copied during a test will receive an F for the class and will not be allowed to drop. They will be reported to their college dean. If you can prove non-cooperative copying took place, your grade may be restored, but you must prove it to the dean--I don't want to be involved. Anyone caught cheating or falsely representing the work of others on the homework will not be allowed to turn in further homework. Your grade will be based exclusively on the tests with a penalty of 25% OR GREATER applied.
We photocopy a random sampling of the exams in order to ensure that students do not modify their tests after they have been returned.
Online solutions, etc.: A solutions manual exists for this text. Using it, or any solutions you may find on the internet elsewhere IS CHEATING and will be dealt with accordingly. We know what the solution manual solutions look like. Homework is a small fraction of your grade.

Homework

Homeworks are due by 3:30pm on the due date unless otherwise noted.
Turn in your printed solutions to Hung-Wei's mailbox in the CSE grad student mailroom, unless otherwise noted.
Late assignments will not be accepted.
There is no regrading of written homeworks, except for addition errors. No single problem will have a significant impact on your grade.
Homework must be completed individually.
Studying in groups is definitely encouraged.
Typically, homework assignments may be graded based on a statistical subset of the problems in each assignment.
Homeworks must be typed or clearly handwritten. Illegible/unreadable answers will receive no credit.

Assignment 1: Discussion Board and Instruction Set Architecture
Assignment 2: Performance Evaluation and Instruction Set Architecture
Assignment 3: Performance Evaluation
Assignment 4: Singlecycle CPU
Assignment 5: Pipelining
Assignment 6: Pipelining(2) and Dynamic Branch Prediction
Assignment 7: Cache
Assignment 8: Cache
Assignment 9: Advanced Pipeline and I/O
Assignment 10: Multiprocessor

Projects

Project 1: Design Your Own ISA