The focus will be on the architectural rather than micro-architectural issues, and a systems approach to computer architecture taking into account the interaction between the architecture and the compiler, operating system, database and networking. The course will start with superscalar/VLIW processor architecture, and proceed to memory hierarchy, storage systems, network hardware, graphics processor, and database machines. The emphasis will be hands-on evaluation of architectural ideas, the exploration of software/hardware design tradeoffs, and the articulation of experimental procedures and performance analysis. A publication-quality class project will be required.