ECE 510 Computer System Architecture

2007f - last updates 2007-12-15

Professor	Duncan Elliott	492-5357	ECERF w2-045
TA

Seminar information

General Course Info

ECE 510 Computer Architecture
Lectures: TR 8-9:20 in ETLC e1-008

Meetings: ECERF 2-020 9:35am as needed

Course outline

An investigation of computer system design concepts emphasizing modern pipelined microprocessors. Topics include performance measures, instruction set design, hazards and exceptions, dependencies, branch prediction, instruction-level parallelism, memory hierarchies, cache organization, buses, rotating storage and I/O subsystem design.

It is possible for us to explore topics other than just those outlined here. If you have a specific interest, please raise it early in the term.

This graduate course in computer architecture will share lectures with the undergraduate course CMPE 382. In addition, there will be a seminar and a project.

The seminar is open to all graduate students and faculty. The price of admission is to present and critique a paper from the reading list. Final reports will also be presented here. The seminar will be scheduled so as to minimize conflicts.

Evaluation will be based on the raw total mark earned on the undergraduate materials, plus the project.

Exclusions: prior credit in CMPE 382, CMPUT 429, ECE 710 Comp Arch

Evaluation

CMPE 382 course work and exams see the above link for important course information	70
Graduate work paper discussion seminars project ("experiment")	30
Paper discussion seminars		Oct 23, 25
Project proposal		Nov 6 (not marked)
Project Oral Presentation		Dec 4??
Final Report		Dec 5
Exam		As timetabled by Registrar

Project ("Experiment")

Perform a quantitative computer architecture experiment.
Present your work and results in a 10-20 minute seminar plus questions. Bring a USB memory key with a PDF or PPT (Office 2003) presentation, or your own laptop.

The main part of final report will be in the form of a well-written 3-8 page "IEEE 2-column format paper" with embedded figures [LaTeX style file, word template]. (See me if you want to use a different format.) In your abstract and introduction, clearly describe what you achieved. Devote approximately a column to background and past work, with references to the literature. Properly quote and reference text and figures from other sources. Describe experiments, analysis and, if applicable, selection between design alternatives.
Your report may contain any number of pages of appendix in any format. Include:
Source code
Tabulate raw data
etc.

Need an idea?

Get a head start on your thesis or MEng report
Pursue something of personal interest
e.g.

Cache modeling - what are the limits of replacement algorithms? Is software selectable fill/bypass useful?
Model the performance of a new instruction vs. without

Here are some project suggestions.

Tools

Dinero cache simulator
Simple Scalar microcomputer simulator
Simple Scalar parallel processor

Did reading this leave any questions unanswered?
Comments on the contents of these pages are welcome, - Duncan Elliott