Time and Location: Monday/Wednesday 3:30pm-4:50PM, ISC Building, 2280
Instructor: Adwait Jog (Personal Website)
Office hours: Monday/Wednesday 2PM to 3:30PM or by appointment, McGl 111
Email: ajog@wm.edu
Teaching Assistant: Prianka Mandal
Office hours: Tuesday/Thursday 12:00PM-1:00PM or by appointment, McGl 312
Deadlines: Sept 6 (add/drop deadline) and Oct 28 (Last day to withdraw). See the UG calender for more details.
Exam Dates: Oct 21 (Midterm Exam, in-class) and Dec 18 (Final Exam, 9:00 to noon in our regular class-room, see Fall 2019 Final Exam Schedule for more details.)
Prerequisite(s): CSCI 304 and either CSCI 301 or CSCI 303
This course will introduce principles of computer design. The students will apply their knowledge of digital logic design to understand the high-level interactions between different computer system hardware components. Specifically, this course will cover various computer architecture aspects related to MIPS ISA, single-cycle data-path design, multiple-cycle design, pipelining, memory hierarchy, and multiprocessor architecture.
Required Textbook: Computer Organization and Design, Patterson & Hennessey (P&H), 5th Edition (MIPS Edition), see this website for more details.
Resources: Access to a computer is necessary.
Materials: Lecture slides, homeworks, and other course materials will be posted on Piazza. Piazza will also be used for course announcements and discussions. We will use Blackboard for online quizzes, submitting homeworks.
Help: It is important to start working on homeworks early. If you need help, show up in the office hours or ask questions in or after the class. You are also highly encouraged to use piazza to ask questions. You are also expected to attend all lectures.
Homework Assignments (40%)
Quizzes and Class Participation (20%)
Midterm Exam (20%)
Final Exam (20%)
Final letter grades will be given based on the standard scale used in W&M. Grades may be curved at the instructor's discretion.
If you have any grading-related questions, please email the TA first (CC the instructor). If issues are not resolved, then you can escalate the matter to the instructor. The instructor will make the final decision.
Homework Assignments (20%)
Quizzes and Class Participation (20%)
Midterm Exam (20%)
Final Exam (20%)
Semester-long Project (20%)
Final letter grades will be given based on the standard scale used in W&M. Grades may be curved at the instructor's discretion.
If you have any grading-related questions, please email the TA first (CC the instructor). If issues are not resolved, then you can escalate the matter to the instructor. The instructor will make the final decision.
Homework assignments should be submitted electronically (no hard copies) on Blackboard by 23:00 hrs on the due date in the PDF format. You may use MS-word or Latex to typeset your answers, however, final submission must be in the PDF format. Submission in any other format (including hand-written and then scanned PDFs) will not be graded and will receive zero.
Homework submission deadlines are hard. However, we do have a late/miss policy for homeworks only:
You can have up to a 48-hour extension for any three (3) homeworks of your choice. Email the TA (CC instructor) if you want use the extension.
If you use up all your three (3) extensions, homeworks will not accepted after the deadline and zero points will be awarded.
You can collaborate on the homework problems with one more student currently enrolled in the class. However, you must write up each problem solution by yourself without assistance. You must also identify your collaborator. If you did not work with anyone, you should write ”Collaborator: none.” It is a violation of this policy to submit a problem solution that you cannot orally explain to the instructor or TA.
You may you use your notes, lecture material, or textbook.
There will be periodic in-class problem solving activities. You are expected to participate in them.
There will be periodic on-line quizzes (mostly via Blackboard). Deadline for each quiz will be announced via Piazza.
If you miss a quiz deadline or an in-class activity, zero points will be awarded for that quiz/activity. However, we do have the following policy:
You can make up for a maximum of two (2) missed in-class activities. Please do so within one week of the missed activity. Email the TA (CC instructor) if you would like to do that.
The lowest score on the quizzes will not be counted.
We have two exams: mid-term and final exam. Dates for the exams are mentioned at the top of this page.
All exams are closed textbook/slides. No electronic devices are allowed during exams. One A4-sized cheat sheet is allowed. Yes, you can use both sides of the page.
No collaboration is allowed on exams.
If you miss an exam, zero points will be awarded for that exam.
Please schedule regular meetings with the instructor (preferably during the office hours) to make progress. A mid-term (5 percent) and a final report (15 percent) is required.
MARS: A MIPS Simulator. Download and Install V4.5, Aug. 2014 and JAVA SDK. It should run on any OS. Browse through the software and documentation to familiarize yourself with the software. Here is a good tutorial with lots of screenshots. Read the tutorial first before starting MARS. More documentation can be found here.
| Week | Date | Agenda | Readings | HW | Quiz/Activity | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Week 1 | Aug 28 | Administrativia and Introductions | Quiz 1 and 2 are out | First Day of class. | ||
| Week 2 | Sep 2 | Introduction, Abstractions, and Technology | Chapter 1 | Download/Install MARS and run sample codes to prepare for upcoming homeworks. | ||
| Sep 4 | Introduction, Abstractions, and Technology | HW 1 Out | Activity 1 | Sept 6 is the Add/drop deadline. | ||
| Week 3 | Sep 9 | MIPS ISA (1) | Appendix A | Activity 2 | ||
| Sep 11 | MIPS ISA (2) | HW 2 Out | ||||
| Week 4 | Sep 16 | MIPS ISA (3) | Chapter 2 | |||
| Sep 18 | MIPS ISA (4) | Activity 3 | Quiz 3 is Out | |||
| Week 5 | Sep 23 | MIPS ISA (5) | Activity 4 | |||
| Sep 25 | MIPS ISA (6) | HW 3 Out | Activity 5 | |||
| Week 6 | Sep 30 | MIPS Datapath (1) | Appendix B.1 -- B.3 and B.7--B.9 | |||
| Oct 2 | MIPS Datapath (2) | Chapter 4.1 -- 4.3 | HW 4 Out | |||
| Week 7 | Oct 7 | Single Cycle Design and Intro to Pipelining | Chapter 4.4 -- 4.7 | |||
| Oct 9 | Pipelining | Quiz 4 is Out | ||||
| Week 8 | Oct 14 | No Class | Fall Break. | |||
| Oct 16 | Mid-term Review | |||||
| Week 9 | Oct 21 | Midterm Exam | In-class Midterm Exam. | |||
| Oct 23 | ||||||
| Week 10 | Oct 28 | Caches (1) | Chapter 5.1 -- 5.3 | HW 5 Out | ||
| Oct 30 | Caches (2) | Activity 6 | ||||
| Week 11 | Nov 4 | Caches (3) | Chapter 5.4 | |||
| Nov 6 | Caches (4) | HW 6 Out | ||||
| Week 12 | Nov 11 | DRAM | Activity 7 | Quiz 5 Out | ||
| Nov 13 | DRAM | |||||
| Week 13 | Nov 18 | Virtual Memory | Chapter 5.6 -- 5.8 | HW 7 Out | Activity 8 | Quiz 6 Out |
| Nov 20 | Virtual Memory | |||||
| Week 14 | Nov 25 | Intro to Multi-processors | Chapter 6.1 -- 6.5 | |||
| Nov 27 | No Class | Thanksgiving break | ||||
| Week 15 | Dec 2 | Final exam review | ||||
| Dec 4 | Special Topic: GPUs (time permitting) | Appendix C-2 | Last Class. Final exam is on Dec 18th, 9 AM to noon in our classroom. |
The university and department policies against academic dishonesty will be strictly enforced.
Students are required to follow the Honor System of William & Mary.
It is the policy of William & Mary to accommodate students with disabilities and qualifying diagnosed conditions in accordance with federal and state laws. Any student who feels s/he may need an accommodation based on the impact of a learning, psychiatric, physical, or chronic health diagnosis should contact Student Accessibility Services staff at 757-221-2509 or at sas@wm.edu to determine if accommodations are warranted and to obtain an official letter of accommodation. For more information, please click here.
The Writing Resources Center, located on the first floor of Swem Library, is a free service provided to W&M students. Trained consultants offer individual assistance with writing, presentation, and other communication assignments across disciplines and at any stage, from generating ideas to polishing a final product. To make an appointment, visit the WRC webpage.
The lecture slides of this course are developed based on the original lecture slides from Mary. J. Irwin (Penn State), which were adapted from Computer Organization and Design, 5th Edition, Patterson & Hennessy (P&H), Morgan Kaufmann. The course staff also acknowledges the contributions of Mary. J. Irwin, Chita Das, Yuan Xie, N. Vijaykrishnan, and other instructors and TAs at Penn State, towards developing the course material over a period of time.