• DESCRIPTION
• COURSE OUTCOMES
• GRADING POLICY
• SYLLABUS
• READINGS
• IMPORTANT DATES
• IMPORTANT RULES AND POLICIES

DESCRIPTION :

CS465 is a 3-credit course with grade of C or better in CS 367 (Computer Systems and Programming) as prerequisite. This course provides an introduction to the fundamental concepts in computer architecture. Topics include: basic system components, performance measurements, instructions and their representation, number representation, implementation of arithmetic operations, processor organization, pipelining, and memory hierarchy.

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COURSE OUTCOMES:

As an outcome of taking this class, a student will be able to

• Explain the organization of the classical von Neumann machine and its major functional components
• Compare performance of simple system configurations and understand the performance implications of architectural choices
• Show how instructions are represented at both the machine level and in the context of a symbolic assembler; be able to understand small MIPS programs and write MIPS assembly program segments
• Use different formats to represent numerical data and convert numerical data from one format to another
• Explain how an instruction is executed and the concept of datapaths and control
• Explain basic instruction level parallelism using pipelining and the major hazards that may occur
• Explain the effect of memory latency on running time; be able to describe the use of memory hierarchy to reduce the effective memory latency, in particular, the role of cache and virtual memory; be able to understand the principles of memory management
• Explain the basic I/O implementation and data transfers
• Explain the principles of thread-level parallelism
• Explain the principles of warehouse-scale and cloud-computing

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GRADING POLICY:

Grades are based on homework assigments (HA), a midterm (MT), a final exam (FE), class participation (CP), and surprise quizzes (SQ). Grades will be numerical on the scale 0-100. Your final numerical grade, G, is computed as:
G = 0.45 * HA + 0.20 * MT + 0.25 * FE + 0.05 * CP + 0.05 * SQ

The following table is used to convert your numerical grade G to a letter grade:

G	letter grade
[97,100]	A+
[92,97)	A
[88,92)	A-
[84,88)	B+
[80,84)	B
[76,80)	B-
[72,76)	C+
[68,72)	C
[64,68)	C-
< 64	F

There is no curving. No extra credit assignments will be given after the semester is over to increase grades.

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SYLLABUS:

Week 1:	Introduction and Part 1 of Fundamentals of Quantitative Design and Analysis
Week 2:	Part 2 of Fundamentals of Quantitative Design and Analysis
Weeks 3-4:	Memory Hierarchy Design
Week 5:	Instruction Level Parallelism
Weeks 6-7:	Data Level Parallelism in Vector, SIMD, and GPU Architectures
Weeks 8:	Midterm
Weeks 9-10:	Thread Level Parallelism
Weeks 11-13:	Warehouse-Scale Computers and Cloud Computing
Week 14:	Review for the Final.
Week 15:	Final Exam

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READINGS:

Required readings:

1. Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach, 5th edition, John L. Hennessy and David A. Patterson, Morgan Kaufmann, 2012.
2. Slides.

1. Articles from IEEE Computer.

IMPORTANT DATES :

First Day of Classes	January 28, 2013.
Spring break (no classes)	March 11, 2013.
Midterm	March 18, 2013.
Last day of classes (final exam)	May 13, 2013.

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IMPORTANT RULES AND POLICIES:

No collaboration is allowed among students in any of the individual assignments and exams.
Please ensure that the assignments are submitted on-time, before class begins (hard-copy and soft-copy). No late submissions.
There will be no make up exams.
Please visit the Office of Academic Integrity's Web page and read Mason's Honor Code.
Please arrive in class on time as a courtesy to the instructor and to your colleagues.

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