cse141: Introduction to Computer Architecture

PCYNH 106
Lectures Tue. & Thu. 3:30pm-4:50pm (PCYNH 106); Disc. Section Fri. 5:00p-5:50p (CSB 002)
Winter, 2015
Shortcuts: Schedule Homeworks Piazza

Instructor

Steven Swanson

Email:

swanson

cs.ucsd.edu

Office: See Piazza
Office Hours: See Piazza
UCSD homepage

Teaching Assistants

Soohyun Nam

Email:

snam

ucsd.edu

Office: See Piazza
Office Hours: See Piazza

Atieh Lotfi

Email:

alotfi

eng.ucsd.edu

Office: See Piazza
Office Hours: See Piazza

Vincent Kuri

Email:

vkuri

eng.ucsd.edu

Office: See Piazza
Office Hours: See Piazza

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 concurrently with 141L. Unless you have discussed it with you me, you should be in enrolled in both.

We will use Piazza extensively in the course for the distribution of slides, class announcements, etc. Please register for the class on Piazza.

Text books

Required: Patterson & Hennessy, Computer Organization and Design: The Hardware/Software Interface, Patterson & Hennessy, Morgan Kaufmann, 5th 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 by the folks that actually made the history (Steve Wozniak, Ray Ozzie, Gordon Bell, etc.). We won't discuss it directly in class, but if you want to be a literate computer scientist, you should watch/listen to them at some point.
Optional: The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood This is an amazing book that ties together a bunch of threads that gave rise to computing (Babbage, Turing, Shannon, Bool, Lovelace, von Neumann, Goedel, etc.). It provides excellent perspective on how information processing evolved over time. We won't discuss it directly in class, but if you want to be a literate computer scientist, you should read it at some point.

Grading

Homework	20%	Homeworks will be assigned throughout the course. They are due on Thursdays
Reading quizzes	10%	Every day there will be a quick quiz at the beginning of class.
Clicker Participation	10%	Answer clicker questions in class.
Midterm	25%	Midterm is on February 12th. Self Explanatory
Final	35%	The final is on Mar 17th. It will be cumulative.

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) will be posted online occasionally throughout the course (usually starting after the midterm). The grade sheet contains all the information about curves and how the grades are computed. It is somewhat complicated, so 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. * HW2 grade (it only has raw score) is available in XLSX.

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. Generally speaking, an A+ corresponds to 100% and an F to anything lower than 50%.

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. Neither I nor the TAs will discuss regrades without receiving an email from you about it first.

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 (e.g., 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 google group.

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	Due	Notes
Tuesday, January 6	Introduction to ISAs
Thursday, January 8	MIPS	Review: 1.3-1.4,; Read: 2.1-2.14	Assignment 1-1; Assignment 1-2; Assignment 1-3;	For 2.1-2.9 many of the concepts should be review from cse30, but the MIPS ISA is new.
Tuesday, January 13	MIPS	Read 1.1-1.2, 1.5-1.11.
Thursday, January 15	MIPS	Read 1.5-1.9	Assignment 2;
Tuesday, January 20	Performance Measurement
Thursday, January 22	Performance Measurement	TBA	Assignment 3;
Tuesday, January 27	Other ISAs	2.16-2.18
Thursday, January 29	Pipelining	4.1-4.8	Assignment 4;
Tuesday, February 3	Pipelining
Thursday, February 5	Data Hazards		Assignment 5;
Tuesday, February 10	Midterm review
Thursday, February 12	Midterm
Tuesday, February 17	Out-of-Order Execution/Introduction Chip-Multiprocessors	4.10-4.12
Thursday, February 19	Caching	5.1-5.3, 5.7, 5.10	Assignment 6;
Tuesday, February 24	Caching	TBA
Thursday, February 26	Caching	TBA	Assignment 7;
Tuesday, March 3	Virtual memory/Final review
Thursday, March 5	GPUs	C.1-C.4, C.7	Assignment 8;	Appendix C is here.
Tuesday, March 10	Storage Systems / Miscellaneous
Thursday, March 12	Final review		Assignment 9;
Tuesday, March 17	Final			3:00p - 6:00p

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, so cheating on it is unproductive.
You may not post any of your solutions online (e.g., on a github account) during the quarter. Doing so constitutes cheating and will be dealt with accordingly).

Homework

Homeworks are due 15min before the class starts on the due date unless noted.
Turn in your printed solutions to the TA's mailbox.
Do not turn in your homeworks in class. I will not accept them (and they would be late anyway).
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 and we will not reconsider or regrade them.

Assignment 1: Secret Username and Clicker Registration
Assignment 2: Instruction Set Architecture, Performance and Other ISAs
Assignment 3: Instruction Set Architecture, Performance and Other ISAs (continued)
Assignment 4: Performance Measurement
Assignment 5: Amdahl's law, Other ISAs
Assignment 6: Pipelining and Hazards
Assignment 7: Hazard,Branch Prediction, Register Renaming
Assignment 8: Introduction to Caches
Assignment 9: Cache, Virtual Memory