| Unit name | Advanced Computer Architecture |
|---|---|
| Unit code | COMSM0109 |
| Credit points | 10 |
| Level of study | M/7 |
| Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 1 (weeks 1 - 12) |
| Unit director | Professor. McIntosh-Smith |
| Open unit status | Not open |
| Pre-requisites | |
| Co-requisites |
None |
| School/department | Department of Computer Science |
| Faculty | Faculty of Engineering |
This unit aims to teach the recent developments in computer architecture. This unit aims to introduce a range of advanced topics in computer architecture, focusing mainly on high performance processors but including recent or ``hot topics (e.g., low-power design). A student completing the unit should gain an appreciation of how various design decisions can improve quality (according to a metric such as performance, area or power consumption) which extends the output of previous units that focus mainly on functionality. Due to the unit remit, the syllabus is somewhat flexible, and could include:
High performance processors: pipelining, hazards, bubbles, branch prediction, delay slots, target buffers, separate instruction units, superscalar, multiple issue, out of order completion, instruction reordering, register renaming, register windows.
Other forms of parallelism: multi-core, multi-threading via SMT and HyperThreading.
Application specific processors: stack processors, vector processors, VLIW, DSP, instruction set extensions for multimedia and cryptography.
Specific processor designs: x86, ARM, SPARC, MIPS.
Selected topics: low-power design, security, virtualisation, advanced computer arithmetic, bridging the memory gap.
On successful completion of this unit, you will: understand the issues in high performance processor design; appreciate alternative, domain-specific processor design challenges.
The unit is taught in 20 lectures, supported by lab work. The lab work concentrates on implementing a simulator for a high performance processor. A further 80 hours are nominally set aside for coursework, private study, etc.
By examination (50%) and assessed coursework (50%)
