Entry requirements

15 credits in science/engineering. Participation in Algebra I and Program Design and Data Structures.

Learning outcomes

After completing the course, the student should be able to:

• Explain how modern computer systems are constructed, including details about pipelines, memory organization, virtual and physical memory, and memory technology.
• Explain the principles of instruction set design, and broadly describe what limits computer systems in terms of bandwidth, power consumption, and cooling.
• Explain how computer systems interact with the outside world through input and output systems and interrupts.
• Write short programs in assembly language to control a computer system.
• Explain the different approaches of parallelism, the challenges associated with them, and some solutions to overcome the challenges.
• Present and discuss the course content orally and in writing with skills appropriate for the educational level.

Content

Models and principles of modern computer systems. Assembly programming, machine operations, and instructions. Memory organization, buses, input and output devices. Structure of the central processing unit, control unit, ALU, pipelining. Parallel computing approaches within computer architecture: pipelining, multicore systems, GPUs, and other coprocessors. Practical application of aquired knowledge through group work. Presentation techniques.

Instruction

Lectures, laboratory work, workshops, and assignments.

Assessment

Written exam (5 credits), oral and written presentation of laboratory work and assignments (3 credits), and presentations (2 credits).

If there are special reasons for doing so, an examiner may make an exception from the method of assessment indicated and allow a student to be assessed by another method. An example of special reasons might be a certificate regarding special pedagogical support from the disability coordinator of the university.

Other regulations

The course cannot be included in a degree with 1DT038 Computer Architecture I or 1DT016 Computer Architecture I.