ECE 721 Advanced Microarchitecture
3 Credit Hours
Survey of advanced computer microarchitecture concepts. Modern superscalar microarchitecture, complexity-effective processors, multithreading, advanced speculation techniques, fault-tolerant microarchitectures, power and energy management, impact of new technology on microarchitecture. Students build on a complex simulator which is the basis for independent research projects.
Prerequisite
Microprocessor Architecture (NC State ECE 563) AND
Strong C/C++ programming skills
Course Objectives
* Gain in-depth understanding of contemporary superscalar microarchitecture.
* Gain in-depth understanding of advanced microarchitectures for overcoming major performance bottlenecks (e.g., trace cache, value prediction, control independence, large-window processors, simultaneous multithreading, pre-execution).
* Build upon a detailed, execution-driven, execute-at-execute, cycle-level simulator (“721sim”), which is the basis for student-defined research projects.
Course Requirements
| Projects (total) | 65% | |
| ILP Limit Study | 5% | |
| Register file and renaming module | 10% | |
| Working with full simulator, coding key parts of issue/execution pipeling | 5% | |
| Final project, paper, and talk | 45% | |
| Midterm exam | 15% | |
| Final Exam | 15% | |
| Quizzes | (12-15) | 5% |
Textbook
None.
Computer and Software Requirements
General purpose programming tools (compilers, debuggers, git, etc.) and EDA tools are available on the EOS system.
Updated 10/26/2020