Course Description
In this course, we will review fundamental structures in modern microprocessor and
computer system architecture design. We will cover computer organization, instruction
set design, memory system design, pipelining, cache coherence protocols, memory schedulers,
power/energy, prefetching and other techniques to explore instruction level parallelism and
thread level parallelism. We will also cover system level topics such as storage subsystems, VLIW,
GPGPU, and NoC. We will also have case studies as to how modern microprocessors are designed.
Everything in the course is the same as
CS 6290/ECE 4100/ECE 6100. Note that beacuse of GaTech rules, you cannot use this course as a cross
list since it will be taught by a graduate student.
Course Material
The optional textbook: Fourth Edition of
Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach by John
Hennessy and David Patterson.
The textbook is available online through GaTech library.
All relevant material will be made available on the course
Canvas.
The exams and assignments will be based on the lectures.
Attendance
Attendance is mandatory unless you get explicit permission
from the instructor to be absent. Students who face emergency
situations outside their control that prevent them from
attendance should contact the instructor before the class. If
that is impossible, the student should inform the instructor
afterwards as soon as possible. The student must provide
documentation or other proof of the emergency situation.
In summary, we might not be taking attendance in every
lecture, but it will be hard to earn a
passing grade without attending lectures.
[Online Class Update]:
Lectures will be available online after the class and attendance is marked by
answering in-class quizzes that will stay open until the end of the day (AOE)
on Canvas. Attendance does not have any positive impact on score, only negative.
You are attending the class to learn, not to get free credit.
Please coordinate with the instructor if you are going to miss several
online sessions.
Evaluation
Students will be evaluated based on the following rubric.
| Homeworks |
10% |
Projects
|
50% |
| Midterm |
15%
|
| Final |
25%
|
I will use two policies to assign final (letter) grades.
Each student's grade will be computed using both policies, and
the final grade will be the better of the two grades. The
first policy is not curved, with 90% or more of the maximum
possible score yielding an A, 80%-90% yielding a B, 70%-90%
yielding a C, 60%-70% yielding a D, and <60% yielding an F.
The second policy is the traditional curve-based policy, using
the average (AVG) and standard deviation (STD) of scores in
the class. Earning more than AVG+STD (one standard deviation
above the average) will yield an A, earning AVG to AVG+STD
will yield a B, earning AVG-STD to AVG will yield a C, earning
AVG-2*STD to AVG-STD will yield a D, and earning less
than AVG-2*STD (two standard deviations or more below the
class average) will result in an F grade. Since the second
policy is based on the average performance of the class, you
can only aim for a certain grade if you use the above rubric
and get the best grade based on the first policy.
There will not be any make-up assignments. Therefore,
if you need a particular grade, plan wisely and perform
accordingly on homework, projects, and exams. Regrades are obtained by
submitting a written explanation to the instructor within 48 hours of
when the work was returned in class. Regrades will only be discussed after
submitting the work in this manner. In order for a test to be re-graded,
you must neatly state in writing the reason that you would like your test to
be re-graded. For the final exam, no
re-grades will be possible until final grades are officially
released (in OSCAR).
Assignment Submission Rules
You must follow the submission guidelines specified in the
assignment description. We will use Canvas. Wrong file
names, broken file formats, missing files will lose 20% of
grade.
No Late Assignments
No late assignments will be accepted and no credit will be
given for any late submission. All homework sets an
project assignments are due on the day specified by the
problem set, announced in Canvas. An assignment
is only considered submitted when it is submitted through
Canvas, and the files that will be graded will be those
submitted in Canvas.
Students who face emergency situations outside their control
that prevent them from completing an assignment in time should
contact the professor before the assignment is due or, if that
is impossible, as soon as possible. After receiving an
extension, the student must submit the assignment before the
extended deadline and will be required to provide
documentation or other proof of the emergency situation.
[Online Class Update]:
With current uncertain situataion, I allow up to 7 days of slack for HW/project
submissions. Slack is in day granularity and you need to update a simple Canvas quiz to let me know.
If you don't use any slack by the end of the class,
depending on others, you will get +2--5% added to your final score.
No Collaboration on Exams or Quizzes
Absolutely no collaboration is allowed during exams or
quizzes. Copying or receiving
any information from
another person or from another person's exam, with or without
their consent, is unethical and unacceptable. However, you can
always ask TAs or the professor for clarification of an exam
question during the exam. Cheating during an exam or a quiz is
a direct violation of the
Georgia Tech Academic
Honor Code and will be reported to and handled by the
office of student affairs.
Group Study
We encourage you to study in groups. However, homeworks,
examinations, and the work on all programming assignments must
be your own individual work. Collaboration with other
students or other persons is prohibited. For homeworks you can discuss your solution
with your group, but mention their names
per question in your homework.
Submitting any work
other than your own is a violating of the Academic Honor Code.
If you are not sure what you can discuss or not, please
contact the instructor.
Submitting any work other than your own (including content
from the Internet) without proper attribution (specifying the
source) will also be reported as Plagiarism, which is also in
violation of the
Georgia Tech Academic Honor Code. Note that this is
different from discussing lecture material (such as
re-explaining an idea covered in class in a different manner
or with a new example, or discussing what is being asked in
the project assignment). Helping someone understand what is
being asked in a problem is fine. However, giving them hints
or helping them actually do what is being asked is not
acceptable.
Ambiguities
If you are not sure about anything, ask the professor and/or
consult the
Georgia
Tech Academic Honor Code. A violation of the rules will
still be considered and treated as a violation of the rules,
regardless of whether or not the student understood the rules
or interpreted them correctly. If you are not sure that you
understand how the rules apply to a particular situation, you
must ask.
Academic Honesty
Students are expected to abide by the
Georgia Tech Academic
Honor Code. Honest and ethical behavior is expected at
all times. All incidents of suspected dishonesty will be
reported to and handled by the office of student affairs. You
will have to do all assignments individually unless explicitly
told otherwise. You may discuss it with classmates but you may
not copy any solution (or any part of a solution).