CS 5513, Fall 2007
Computer Architecture
Professor:
Daniel A. Jiménez,
dj@cs.utsa.edu
Office:
SB 4.01.58
Office Hours:
Tuesdays, 3:30pm to 5:00pm
Teaching Assistant: Lijie Zhang,
lijez@cs.utsa.edu
Office: SB 3.01.04
Office Hours: Thursdays, 4:00pm to 5:00pm
Class Times:
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 5:30pm to 6:45pm in HSS 2.02.10
Textbook:
Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach, Fourth Edition
by John L. Hennessy and David A. Patterson, ISBN 978-0-12-370490-0
Prerequisites:
- CS 3733: Operating Systems and CS 4753: Computer Architecture are
required by the catalog.
- Java, C, and/or C++ programming. Programming in an object-oriented
style will be required.
- Computer organization, logic design, assembly language programming,
all of which would be prerequisites of CS 4753 and/or CS 3733.
Course Description:
From the Graduate Catalog: Study of modern computer architecture,
including parallel computers, multiprocessors, pipelines, and fault
tolerance.
From the professor: This is a graduate level computer architecture class.
We'll learn about computer architecture with an emphasis on microprocessor
microarchitecture. We'll see how software and hardware cooperate to
run programs, and we'll think a lot about improving computer systems.
Course Requirements:
-
Homework Assignments:
(15% of grade).
We'll have several homework assignments, some requiring programming.
-
Midterm exam:
(20% of grade). There will be approximately one midterm exam.
-
Second Exam:
(25% of grade). There will be a comprehensive second exam.
-
Project:
(25% of grade). There will be a research project. Students will consult
with the professor to choose their topics. Students may work individually
or in groups of up to three. A list of topics will be posted to the class
web page. Alternately, students may define their own topics in consultation
with the professor. The project will be turned in in two phases: a proposal
and a final writeup. The proposal will be an informal document describing
the work proposed, and will be used to refine the scope of the project.
The final writeup will be a conference-quality paper describing the topic,
related work, methodology, and results. Note that the professor considers
the quality of the writing to be as important as the quality of
the research in terms of grading.
- Presentation and Evaluation:
(10% of grade). Students will present one research paper in class
chosen from a schedule of papers that will be made available the first
week of class. The presentations will be 30 to 45 minutes (no more)
using PowerPoint or similar presentation software, and will be followed by
a brief class discussion. In addition, each student will submit a review
of the paper by email ASCII text before the class in which the
paper is presented. A review is approximately 500 words of thoughtful
critical comment on the paper. Reviews are mandatory for each student
and each paper and figure into the presentation and evaluation grade.
-
Class Participation
(5% of grade). Students are expected to contribute to the class discussion
by asking questions or offering information.
(This list of requirements is tentative and may be modified during the
first or second week of class based on class size and other factors.)
Policy on Assignments and Tests
Late assignments are not accepted. If you have not completed an assignment
by the time it is due, turn in what you have for partial credit. Make-up
tests are generally not given except for university sanctioned reasons,
such as religious holidays, documented illnesses, or other grave situations.
You must inform the professor before missing the test.
Academic Dishonesty
Unless a programming project or problem set is specifically assigned as a
group project, students are not allowed to work together on assignments.
You may discuss general ideas related to the assignment, but you may not
e.g. share program code or read each others writeups. Instances of such
collaboration will be dealt with harshly, but the real cost comes when
a student doesn't know how to answer questions on a test about issues
involved in doing an assignment. In writing assignments, you may not copy
or paraphrase work in whole or in part from other sources without giving
proper attribution and making it clear which passages of text are from
other sources. Failure to do so is considered plagiarism.