ECE 563 Microprocessor Architecture

3 Credit Hours

Architecture of microprocessors. Measuring performance. Instruction-set architectures. Memory hierarchies, including caches, prefetching, program transformations for optimizing caches, and virtual memory. Processor architecture, including pipelining, hazards, branch prediction, static and dynamic scheduling, instruction-level parallelism, superscalar, and VLIW. Major projects.

Prerequisite

Graduate Standing

Proficiency in C/C++

Topics of Study

1. Introduction and overview (1 lecture)
2. Technology trends and quantitative analysis (2 lectures)
3. Pipelined microarchitectures (5-6 lectures)
4. Branch prediction (2-3 lectures)
5. Out-of-order execution (7-8 lectures)
6. Memory hierarchy design (7-8 lectures)
7. Instruction set design (2 lectures)
8. Midterm exam (1 lecture)

Grading

Exams x2	50%
– Midterm Exam	20%
– Final Exam	30%
Homework Assignments	5%
Projects	40%
Quizzes	5%

Textbook

Required textbook:

Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach, Sixth Edition(opens in new window). John Hennessy and David Patterson. Morgan Kaufmann (Elsevier Science & Technology Books), 2017,
ISBN: 9780128119051
$109.95 (print – paperback)
$66.75 (“All-In” – digital textbook – FAQ(opens in new window))

General purpose programming tools available on the EOS system.

Updated: 10/31/2022