ECSE 425 Syllabus – Fall 2011

Download a PDF version of the syllabus

Prerequisites

• ECSE 322 – Computer Engineering

• ECSE 323 – Digital System Design

Topics

1. Trends in computer design; performance measures

2. Pipelining

3. Exposing and exploiting instruction-level parallelism

4. Memory hierarchy

5. Multiprocessor architecture and thread-level parallelism

Grading

There are six homework sets, two midterm exams, a project, and a final exam. The approximate grading breakdown is:

• Homework 10%

• Midterm 1 15%

• Midterm 2 15%

• Project 30%

• Final 30%

We reserve the right to change these weights based on class performance.

Homework: Homework sets are due at the start of class on their due date. No credit will be given for late work without prior permission.

Exams: Midterm exams will be held in class, on October 12 and November 16. The final will be a 3-hour exam administered according to the University’s calendar.

Project: The final project will be to develop, simulate and evaluate an architectural element discussed in or related to material in the class. This project will require you work in pairs to modify a large C program (a processor simulator), and run experiments with the purpose of measuring the performance effect of architectural changes.

Text

• Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach, by J. Hennessy and D. Patterson, 4th ed., Morgan Kaufmann, 2006.

The text is on reserve in the Schulich Library, and can be purchased at Paragraphe.

Supplemental Text

• J. Shen and M. Lipasti, Modern Processor Design, McGraw-Hill, 2004.

The supplemental text is not required, but is also on reserve in the Schulich Library.