CSE 502 Computer Architecture (Fall 2008)

Course Description

This is a graduate-level computer architecture course. Students who plan to take this course are expected to have the level of maturity in computer architecture provided in CSE320. If you don't have that background and still want to take this course, please come and talk to me first. This semester we will explore current trends in computer architecture, in particular, the head-long rush into parallel computing for modern commercial microprocessors, especially the development of energy-efficient grid-computers-on-single-chips. Lectures will follow the new (2006) text rather closely after a quick review of instruction pipelines and memory hierarchies. A few relevant architecture papers will be made available on the website for students to read, critique, and discuss in class.

There will be two midterm exams, but no final exam. In addition, there will be four or five homeworks, taken mainly from exercises in the text. A major component of this course is the class project. Students will be organized into two-person teams to work on a computer architecture-related research project. The innovation and novelty shown in these projects will be major factors in the grades. Successful projects will not be just repetition of someone else's ideas; instead students are expected to contribute something new to the state of the art. Each team will be asked to make a 30-minute presentation for its project to the class at the end of the semester, as well as to turn in a publication-quality research paper that documents the approach, experiments, results, and analysis.

The final grade will be based on: 15% Homework(& Reading Writeups), 5% in-class Quiz(zes), 50% Midterms, and 30% Project. The workload is estimated to be 10 to 20 hours per week, excluding the project effort.

Recent Notices

Administrative Matters

Special Needs

If you have a physical, psychological, medical or learning disability that may impact on your ability to carry out assigned course work, I would urge that you contact the staff in the Disabled Student Services office (DSS), Room 133 Humanities, 632-6748/TDD. DSS will review your concerns and determine, with you, what accommodations are necessary and appropriate. All information and documentation of disability is confidential.

Reading and project handouts - none yet

Lecture Slides

  • Lectures 01+02 - intro Tu-Th-Tu 2-9Sep08: ppt / pdf
  • Lectures 03+04 - performance and pipelining review Th-Tu-Th 11-18Sep08: ppt / pdf
  • Lectures 05+06 - cache, VM, and TLB review Tu-Th 23-25Sep08: ppt / pdf
  • Tu 3Oct08 was Fall holiday; Th 2Oct08 was first quiz; Tu 7Oct08 was quiz results; Th 9Oct08 was Fall holiday: no lecture notes.
  • Lecture 07+08 - ILP: dynamic scheduling of code Tu-Th 14-16Oct08: ppt / pdf
  • Lecture 09 - ILP2: speculative scheduling of code Tu 21Oct08: ppt / pdf
  • Th 23Oct08 covered HW1 solutions: no lecture notes.
  • Lecture 10 - SMT: Simultaneous Multi-Threading Tu 28Oct08: ppt / pdf
  • Lecture 11+12 - Vector Processing Tu 30Oct08 - Th 4Nov08: ppt / pdf
  • Lecture 13 - Review and Sample for MidTerm1 Th 6Nov08: ALLPartA7pgs.pdf / AllPartB150pgs.pdf
  • Lecture 14 - Symmetric Multiprocessing HW - Th 13Nov08: ppt / pdf