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ECE 411 : Computer Organization and Design |
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Course ObjectivesThis course is an intensive introduction to the fundamentals of computer architecture. Relying heavily upon the elementary principles taught in ECE 290 and ECE 390 (old ECE 291), we will discuss the basic design, or architecture, of computing hardware. Computer systems involve architecture design at many levels. We will focus on the instruction set architecture (ISA) level (the interface between the software and computing hardware) and the microarchitecture level (the computing hardware itself). We will examine to some extent, the level above the instruction set (the programming language level) and the level below the microarchitecture (the logic gate level) in order to deepen our understanding of computing systems. This course has a demanding design component; you will implement some of the basic concepts presented in lecture using real hardware design tools. Contact InformationInstructor: Constantine Polychronopoulos. Office: 463 CSL, E-mail: cdp-at-csrd.illinois.edu. Teaching
Assistants:
Lecture and Office HoursLecture: 9:30 a.m. -10:50 a.m. , Tuesday and Thursday, 335 Mechanical Engineering Bldg. Instructor office hours: Tuesday 11:00 am to 1:00 pm, and by appointment, 463 CSL Course
TA office hours*:
252EL (EWS) as the main location, we may ask you to meet us at the
Grainger library if 252EL gets overcrowded.
The TAs will be sitting at a workstation with a sign on his computer. Check the webboard for extra office hours and temporary changes. Course EssentialsPrerequisites:
ECE
290 (or equivalent) and ECE 291 (new ECE 390, or equivalent).
Other useful books include: Harold S. Stone, High-Performance Computer Architecture, 3rd edition, Addison Wesley Andrew Tanenbaum, Structured Computer Organization, 4th Edition, Prentice Hall, 1999 Also, students in the past have found the following book helpful in doing the projects. P. J. Ashenden, The Student’s Guide to VHDL, Morgan Kaufmann, 1996.
Projects: 3% MP1 13% MP2 25% MP3 Exams: 16% Midterm #1 16% Midterm #2 25% Final Other: 2% Subjective evaluation Late submission policy Late submissions will be subject to the following penalty schedule without exceptions: 15% off for the first day, 10% off for each subsequent day, excluding weekends. No credit will be given to any submissions that are more than 7 days past the due date.
Exam
times and locations:
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"Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 18 000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers of the future may have only 1 000 vacuum tubes and perhaps weigh 1˝ tons." — Popular Mechanics, March 1949 |