Contact Information	Course Description	Course Goals and Objectives
Course Outline	Calendar	Course Materials
Grading	Attendance and Participation	Assignments
Academic Integrity	Viruses

Contact Information

 

Professor	Richard J. Povinelli, Ph.D.
E-mail	Richard.Povinelli@mu.edu (checked late evening or early morning)
Homepage	http://povinelli.eece.mu.edu
D2L	http://d2l.mu.edu
Phone	288-7088 with voice mail
Office Hours
Office	EN224
Lab	EN523, EN388
Teaching Assistant	Zahid Uddin
TA Office Hours	TBD

Course Description and Prerequisites

This course is an overview of computer hardware systems, with emphasis on microprocessor design. Topics include performance analysis, MIPS assembly language, arithmetic logic units, datapath and control aspects of instruction set architectures, pipelining, and memory and I/O devices.

Prereq: EECE 112 with a minimum grade of C and either COEN 030 or COSC 148. (With a minimum grade of C.)

Course Goals

To present students with a detailed understanding of the design problems and their solutions for modern computer hardware at and above the circuit block diagram level.

Course Objectives

By the end of this course, you should be able to...

• Be able to implement small to moderate-sized software applications using a modern assembly language (such as MIPS)
• Be able to design combinatorial and sequential hardware to perform basic arithmetic calculations, and be able to critique various design alternatives.
• Be able to use several different quantitative performance measures for comparing hardware designs, and be able to identify the advantages and disadvantages of each.
• Be able to design and implement a single-cycle or multi-cycle datapath and its control signals, and be able to assess design methodologies and alternatives.
• Be able to design a basic pipelined datapath and its control signals at the circuit block diagram level, and to address issues with structural, data, or branching hazards at either the hardware or software level.
• Be able to design multiplication and division algorithms for integer or floating point numbers, using IEEE standard representation.
• Be able to design memory caches, interface memories at different levels of a memory hierarchy, and do a performance analysis of a hierarchical memory system.
• Be able to interface I/O devices using standard bus protocols, and be able to do a performance analysis of an I/O system based on the speed and bandwidths of the system components.
  

Course Outline

 

What	When
Introduction - Chapter 1	wk1
Instruction sets, MIPS - Chapter 2, Appendix B (B.5 - B.11)	wk2-3
Arithmetic Logic Units - Chapter 3 (3.1 - 3.2, 3.8 - 3.10), Appendix C (C.5 - C.6)	TBD
Performance Analysis - Chapter 4	TBD
Processor Datapath and Control - Chapter 5	TBD
Pipelining - Chapter 6	TBD
Multiplication, Division, Floating Point - Chapter 3 (3.4 - 3.11)	TBD
Memory Hierarchy - Chapter 7	TBD
I/O Systems - Chapter 8 (8.4 - 8.5)	TBD
Custom processors, advanced topics - Chapter 8, 9, Notes	TBD

NOTE: All dates and numbers are subject to change as deemed necessary!

Calendar

 

Week	Month	Mon	Wed
1	Jan	12 First day of class Assignment 1	14
2	Jan	19	21 Assignment 1 due Assignment 2
3	Jan	26	28
4	Feb	2 Assignment 2 due Assignment 3	4
5	Feb	9 Project 1 assigned	11
6	Feb	16 Assignment 3 due Assignment 4	18
7	Feb	23 Midterm Questions assigned	25 Assignment 4 due
8	Mar	2 Midterm Questions due	4 Midterm Project 1 due Friday March 6th
	Mar	9	11
9	Mar	16 Project 2 assigned	18
10	Mar	23	25
11	Mar / Apr	30	1
12	Apr	6 Project 2 due Project 3 assigned	8
13	Apr	13	15
14	Apr	20	22
15	Apr	27	29 Project 3 due Friday May 1st

Final Exam: Monday, May 4, 2009, 8-10a.m.

 

Legend

No Class

NOTE: All dates and numbers are subject to change as deemed necessary!

Course Materials

Required Text

Computer Organization and Design: The Hardware/Software Interface, 4th Edition. by David A. Patterson, John L. Hennessy, Morgan Kaufmann, 2009

Grading

 

What	Number	Value per	Total
Homework			150
Projects
Project 1 and 2	2	100	200
Project 3	1	200	200
Exams
Midterm	1	200	200
Final (cummulative)	1	250	250
Total			1000

NOTE: All dates and numbers are subject to change as deemed necessary!

Grade Scale

 

91+	A
89-91	AB
81-89	B
79-81	BC
71-79	C
69-71	CD
60-69	D

The grading scale is the most stringent one you will be held to, i.e. I can give you a higher letter grade than shown on the scale, but never a lower one.

Graduate credit

Students taking this course for graduate credit will have additional problems assigned on homework, projects, and exams, which may include advanced material or topics.

Late Assignments

I will deduct 5% for assignments up to one day late, 10% for two days late, and 15% for up to three days late, and so on up to a maximum of 50% off. The weekend will count as 1 day. Assignments are due at the beginning of class. They are late after that. Assignments are not accepted after solutions have been distributed, nor after the last day of class. In class assignments are only accepted during the class period they are assigned.

Attendance

I have always enjoyed teaching classes where the students actively participate - a conversation is more fun than a monologue! Although there is no specific credit assigned for attending, it is still expected. There may be in class graded assignments. These may be turned in only during the class period they are given.

Assignments

Undergraduates should expect to spend, on average, from six (6) to nine (9) hours per week on preparation for this class. Graduate students should expect to spend an additional three hours per week. This time is in addition to the three (3) hours of lecture you are expected to attend every week.

Homework assignments

There will be several homework assignments which will be collected and graded. The homework assignments will be scaled to 150 points. Homework assignments are due at the beginning of class.

All written portions of assignments must be created using a word processor (saved as Word 2003/2004 format). No part of the writeup may be hand drawn. The writeups are to be well written with proper spelling and grammar. Points will be deducted for poorly written and formatted assignments. Code and other portions should be submitted in the proper electronic format.

Only an electronic version of all assignments must be turned in. See the directions for instructions on how to turn in the assignments electronically. They are due according to the the time specified in the calendar.

Projects

There will be three (3) major projects, to give you an opportunity for design work. You will be designing, implementing, and verifying a computer architecture.

Exams

There will be a two (2) exams. A midterm worth 200 points each and a final exam worth 250 points. See the calendar for the dates.

Academic Integrity

College of Engineering Policy and Procedure - Academic Dishonesty (Make sure you read this)

Marquette University Policy - Academic Dishonesty (Make sure you read this)

My Policy

ACADEMIC DISHONESTY OF ANY FORM WILL NOT BE TOLERATED IN THIS CLASS. ANY STUDENT FOUND TO BE PERFORMING ANY ACT OF ACADEMIC DISHONESTY WILL BE SUBJECT TO THE MAXIMUM PENALTY FOR THE PARTICULAR OFFENSE.

I will not tolerate any form of dishonesty in any of my classes and I hope you feel the same. If you become aware of any form of dishonesty taking place in any activity concerned with any of your classes it is your duty to make sure that the offense is made known to the proper authority. This is a problem which affects all of us and I am asking for your help in keeping the standards of education here at Marquette University as high as they deserve to be.

Viruses

Any assignment turned in in electronic format that contains a virus will receive a zero.