ECE Course Outline

ECE4100

Advanced Computer Architecture (3-0-3)

Prerequisites
ECE 3055/3056
Corequisites
None
Catalog Description
Comprehensive coverage of the architecture and system issues that confront the design of high performance workstation/PC computer architectures with emphasis on quantitative evaluation. Credit is not allowed for both ECE 4100 and any of the following courses: ECE 6100, CS 4290, CS 6290.
Textbook(s)
Hennessey & Patterson, Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach (6th edition), Morgan Kaufmann, 2017. ISBN 9780128119051 (required)

Topical Outline
Pipelines    
      review basic principles, hazards, dependencies   
      data hazards, scoreboards, Tomasulo algorithm  
      control hazards, branch prediction techniques    
      multiple instruction issue   
      compiler support   
      speculative execution         
      performance evaluation   

 Memory systems   
      review of caches principles   
      techniques to reduce cache misses, multi-level caches    
      techniques to reduce hit time 
      techniques to improve main memory performance   
      virtual memory   

 Storage Systems
      review of storage technologies, magnetic disk basics    
      I/O performance measures, benchmarks   
      reliability, availability, RAID  
      interaction with caches, OS   

 Parallel Computers    
      taxonomy of parallel architectures, parallel applications            
      synchronization mechanisms    
      bus based cache coherence protocols   
      directory based cache coherence protocols   
      memory consistency models, relaxed consistency models   
      interconnection networks, bi-section bandwidth, topologies   
      networked workstation cluster computers
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