COSC 3330/6308 Computer Architecture
Jehan-François Pâris
jparis@uh.edu
Administrative details (I)
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Instructor:
E-mail:
Office:
Phone:
Office hours:
• Web page:
• Email group:
• Twitter:
Jehan-François Pâris
jparis AT uh DOT edu
569 PGH
713-743-3341 (office hours)
MW 3:00-3:45 pm and
5:30-6:45 pm
www.cs.uh.edu/~paris
COSC_3330_fall_2012
jehanfrancois (emergency)
Administrative details (II)
• TA:
Xifeng Gao
– Email: gxf.xisha AT gmail DOT com
– Hours: Th 4:30-6:00 in PGH 309
• TA:
Salah Taamneh
– Email: taamneh_07 AT hotmail DOT com
– Hours: M 1- 2 pm and Tu 11am-12 noon
in PGH 201
What we will cover
• Focus is on hardware, not software
• Will discuss
– The various components of a computer
• CPU, memory, storage
– How they are built
• Combinatorial circuits (have no memory)
• Sequential circuits
Textbook
• D. A. Patterson and J. L. Hennessy,
Computer Organization and Design,
Morgan Kaufmann,4th Edition, 2009.
– Third edition remains helpful
• Authors are top experts in the field
– Patterson: Berkeley RISC and RAID arrays
– Hennessy: MIPS
• Very unusual
Course organization (I)
• Introduction:
– Chapter 1
• Principles of digital design:
Boolean algebra, gates, combinatorial circuits,
ALU, flip-flops, latches and registers, SRAM and
DRAM, finite state machines
– Appendix B
Course organization (II)
• Control units:
combinational control units and finite state
machine control
– Appendix C
• Instruction set design:
a brief overview
– Chapter 2
Course organization (III)
• Computer arithmetic:
addition and subtraction, multiplication, division,
floating point operations
– Chapter 3
• The processor:
data paths, pipelining, data and control
hazards, parallelism
– Chapter 4
Course organization (IV)
• The memory hierarchy:
main memory, cache organization, cache
consistency
– Chapter 5
• Storage subsystems:
hard drives flash drives, RAID arrays,
performance issues
– Chapter 6
Course organization (V)
• Parallel architectures:
multicore, multiprocessors, clusters, hardware
multithreading
– Chapter 7
Grading policy (I)
• Grade will be based on
– Two midterms (20% each)
– One final (40%)
– Problem sets (20%)
• Ten percent penalty for late submissions
Grading policy (II)
• All tests will be closed book
• You will be responsible for all materials
discussed in class
– Not for the readings
• You will be allowed one 8.5"×11" page of notes
for each test
– One page means one side of a sheet!
Timetable
• First Midterm
• Second Midterm
• Final
Monday, October 1
Monday, November 5
Friday, December 14
at 5:00 pm
Academic honesty
• No cheating or plagiarism will be tolerated in
any graded assignment
• You cannot pass for your own anything you
did not write
• The minimum penalty for any transgression
will be an F grade for the course
You have
been
warned!
A word for the new students
• The American system of higher education favors
those who work diligently through the semester
– Final examinations tend to be much less
critical than in many other countries
– System offers no second chances