CS 668
Computer Architecture Designs (Fall 2007)

Meeting Time and Location:
Innovation Hall 134, Tuesday, 7:20 - 10:00 pm

Instructor: Prof. Yutao Zhong.
Email: yzhong (at) cs (dot) gmu (dot) edu
Office: STII 419
Office hour: TBA

Course Home Page
We will use WebCT (GMU WebCT Home) for this course.

Overview
This course will cover advanced techniques in computer architecture designs, evaluations and analysis.  Discussions extend from conventional techniques like pipelines to the latest trend of multi-core processors.  Tentative topics include: Prerequisites: CS540 or CS571 or equivalent.
Students are expected to be acquainted with basic knowledge in computer systems and organizations.  You are encouraged to contact the instructor if you have concerns.

Course Resources

Grading Policies
There will be written assignments, midterm and final exams, and one course project.  Missed exams must be arranged with the instructor BEFORE the exam.  Documentation of the illness (doctor's note) is required for the absence of an exam.  No early exams will be given and make-up exams are strongly discouraged.  Course project includes a one-page proposal, an in-class presentation and a final report.  You will select your own project topic with the help from the instructor.  A list of suggested topics will be given.  The project can be either a literature survey, a recreation of research experiments, or a detailed review of a particular architecture, etc.  Tentative distribution is: written assignments: 25%, midterm: 20%, final exam: 25%, project: 30%.  Letter grades will be assigned by subjectively identifying brackets in the numeric scores.  A total score of 49 or less will result in F. 

Late Policy
NO LATE ASSIGNMENTS ACCEPTED WITHOUT DOCUMENTATION FOR ILLNESS, with the following exception: every student of the course is allowed to have a total of 3 FREE LATE DAYS.  Consider them as non-transferable, non-replaceable credits and use them wisely.  If you wish to use one or more of these, indicate it clearly in your submission.  Late days CANNOT be applied on project proposal or presentation.  No partial late day is in effect. You need one whole late day to cover a one-hour late submission.  Late submissions will not be graded if you have used all three late days.  Partial credits are available for in-time submissions.

Honor Code
You are expected to abide by the honor code.  Please refer to GMU Academic Policies and Computer Science Department Honor Code.  Any violation of the honor code will result in a zero of the assignment/exam, and may result in an F for the class.