Welcome to the Spring 2016 CS152 web page. The course is intended to provide a foundation for students interested in performance programming, compilers, and operating systems, as well as computer architecture and engineering. Our goal is for you to better understand how software interacts with hardware, how hardware functions to provide you with the functionality you observe every day, and to understand how trends in technology, applications, and economics drive continuing changes in the field. The course will begin with basic processor design, proceed to advanced concepts found in modern products, then cover the different forms of parallelism found in applications (instruction-level, data-level, thread-level, gate-level) and how these can be exploited with various architectural features, and conclude with advanced topics on GPUs and emerging alternative architectures. We will cover pipelining, superscalar, speculative and out-of-order execution, vector machines, VLIW machines, multithreading, graphics processing units, and parallel microprocessors. We will also explore the design of memory systems including caches, virtual memory, and DRAM. Advanced topics include GPUs and alternative computational models such as neuromorphic. For more information please refer to the syllabus.

An important part of the course is a series of lab assignments using real microprocessor designs implemented in the Chisel hardware description language, and running as simulators of actual hardware. These simulators will give you an in-depth look at a variety of processor architectural techniques. Our objective is that you will understand all the major concepts used in modern microprocessors by the end of the semester.

Course Calendar with Handouts

Note: Tentative, schedule subject to change!
Pink means deadline. Yellow means quiz. Green means holiday.
Schedules on Thursdays refer to both 2-4pm and 4-6pm sessions.

Week Date Lecture Readings
5th Edition
Readings
4th Edition
Assignments
1 Wed Jan 20 L1: Introduction, Early Machines PDF PPT Ch. 1, App. A Ch. 1, App. B
Thu Jan 21 Section 1: Introduction, RISC-V Tools,
Abstraction Layers, Infrastructure PDF PPT
2 Mon Jan 25 L2: Simple Machine Implementations, Microcoding PDF PPT
Ch 3.13 PS 1 PDF
Handout PDF
Solutions PDF
Wed Jan 27 L3: From CISC to RISC PDF PPT
App K.4 Lab 1PDF
Thu Jan 28 L4: Pipelining PDF PPT App. C.1-C.3 App. A.1-A.3
3 Mon Feb 1 Section 2: Microcode Machines and Lab 1 Overview PDF

 
Wed Feb 3 L5: Pipelining II PDF PPT
App. C.4-C.6 App. A.4-A.6
Thu Feb 4 Section 3: Pipelining review PDF  
 
4 Mon Feb 8 L6: Memory Hierarchy PDF PPT
App. B.1-B.2, Ch. 2.1-2.3 App. C.1-C.2, Ch. 5.1-5.3
Wed Feb 10 L7: Memory Hierarchy II PDF PPT

App. B.3 App. C.3 PS 1 due
Lab 1 due
Thu Feb 11 Section 4: PS 1 Review, Lab 2 intro PDF     PS 2 PDF
Solutions PDF
Handout2 PDF
Lab 2 PDF
5 Mon Feb 15 Holiday
     
Wed Feb 17 Quiz 1: ISAs, microcode, simple pipelines
Solutions PDF
   
Thu Feb 18 Section 5: Memory Hierarchy PDF      
6 Mon Feb 22 L8: Address Translation and Protection PDF PPT App. B.4-7 App. C.4-7
Wed Feb 24 L9: Virtual Memory PDF PPT
Ch. 2.4. App. B.4
Thu Feb 25 Section 6: Translation Protection and Virtual Memory PDF    
7 Mon Feb 29 L10: Complex pipelines, Out-of-order Issue, Register Renaming PDF PPT Ch. 3.1,3.4-3.5 Ch. 2.1,2.4-2.5 PS 3 PDF
Solutions PDF
Wed Mar 2 L11: Out-of-order Exceptions, Branch Prediction PDF PPT Ch. 3.6, 3.8 Ch. 2.6, 2.8 PS 2 due
Lab 2 due
Thu Mar 3 Section 7: PS 2 review; Quiz 2 Prep; Out-of-order Execution PDF Lab 3 PDF
8 Mon Mar 7 Quiz 2: Memory Hierarchies and Virtual Memory
Solutions PDF


Wed Mar 9 L12: Advanced Out-of-Order Superscalars PDF PPT Ch. 3.7
Thu Mar 10 Section 8: Complex Pipelines Review; Lab 3 Overview PDF
9 Mon Mar 14 L13: VLIW PDF PPT Ch. 3.2,3.7 Ch. 2.2,2.7 PS 4 PDF
Solutions PDF
Wed Mar 16 L14: Multithreading PDF PPT Ch. 3.12 Ch. 3.5 PS 3 due
Thu Mar 17 Section 9: PS 3 review, Lab 4 intro PDF Lab 4 PDF
10 Mar 21-25 Spring Break      
11 Mon Mar 28 Quiz 3: Complex Pipelining
Solutions PDF


Lab 3 due
Wed Mar 30 L15: Vectors PDF PPT Ch. 4.1-4.3 (App. G) App. F
Thu Mar 31 Section 10: Instruction Level Parallelism PDF
12 Mon Apr 4 L16: GPUs PDF PPT Ch. 4.4-4.9 N/A PS 5 PDF
Solutions PDF
Handout1 PDF
Handout7 PDF
Wed Apr 6 L17: Synchronization and Sequential Consistency PDF PPT Ch. 5.1, 5.5-5.6 Ch. 4.1-4.4 PS 4 due
Thu Apr 7 Section 11: PS 4 review, Lab 5 intro PDF Lab 5 PDF
13 Mon Apr 11 Quiz 4: VLIW, Vectors, Multithreading
Solutions PDF


Wed Apr 13 L18: Snoopy Caches PDF PPT Ch. 5.2-5.3 Lab 4 due
Thu Apr 14 Section 12: Parallel Architectures Review PDF      
14 Mon Apr 18 L19: Directory Protocols PDF PPT Ch. 5.4 N/A
Wed Apr 20 L20: Datacenters PDF PPT Ch. 6 PS 5 due
Thu Apr 21 Section 13: PS 5 Review PDF
15 Mon Apr 25 L21: The Future and Closing Remarks PDF PPT
Wed Apr 27 Quiz 5: Parallel Architectures
Solutions PDF
Th Apr 28
16 Tues May 3 Lab 5 due