ECE 382N, Spring 2000
Y. N. Patt, M. D. Brown
Nominal Course Outline
January 19, 2000

Last updated March 6, 2000  (class on Tuesday, March 7)

January 19: First class meeting. Introduction to the course, administrative details. Focus of the course.
Architecture and Microarchitecture.

January 24: A simple example: The LC-2. Architecture and Microarchitecture.

January 25: First discussion meeting. The logic design of a simple ALU. Introduction to the CAD tools we
will be using in the course.

January 26: The Microarchitecture of the LC-2, continued. From a simple microprogrammed implementation to
an aggressive pipelined model.
 

January 26: Problem Set 1a due.

January 31, February 1,2: The Intel Architecture 32 (nee x86), and implementation issues.

February 7,8,9: Discussions as needed on the CAD tools we will be using throughout the term.

February 11: Problem Set 1b due.

February 14: Basic concepts in microarchitecture. Critical path, Bread and Butter Design, Partitioning, Timing,
Pipelining. The LC-1: a simple data path, state machine, microsequencer, microinstruction definition, and
microcode. Microprogramming (horizontal, vertical, two-level, dynamic microprogramming, bit steering).
Extension to pipelining and pipelined control. Effective use of short pipelines, with some digressions into more
effective use of long pipelines without blocking.

February 15: Discussion section (as needed).

February 16: Alternative approaches to concurrency. Vector Processing, SIMD, MIMD, Introduction to
Multiprocessing. Data Flow.

February 18: Problem Set 2 due.

February 21: Overview of High Performance Implementation in the next decade.

February 22, 23: Overview of High Performance Implementation in the next decade, continued.

February 28: Overview of High Performance Implementation in the next decade, continued.

February 29: Review (or catch up!).

March 1: Exam 1.

March 6: Branch Prediction.

March 7: Office Hours.

March 8: Out-of-order Issue: guest lecture by Dr. Jared Stark.

March 8: Problem Set 4 due.

March 13-17: Spring break.

March 20-22: Discussion section as needed. Prepare for first design review.

March 24-31: First Design Review, by appointment.

Problem Set 5 is due at the first design review.

March 27: IEEE Floating Point arithmetic The IEEE Standard. Formats. Gradual underflow, NaNs, Exceptions,
Round-off, Guard Digits and Sticky bits, Wobble.

March 28: Discussion section as needed.

March 29: Influence of Multiprocessing.

April 3: Discussion section as needed.

April 4: Cache Consistency

April 5: Case Study I: The microarchitecture of a Current Microprocessor.

April 10: Dynamic Optimizations (Guest lecture by Professor Sanjay Patel)

April 11: Case Study II: The microarchitecture of a Current Microprocessor.

April 12: Review (or catch up!).

April 17: Guest lecture by Professor Wen-mei Hwu, University of Illinois

April 18: Exam 2.

April 19: No class.

April 24, 25, 26, May 1, 2: Lecture or Discussion, tbd.

May 3: Last class meeting. Review of the course.
 Final project design review -- May 8-12, by appointment.

May 12: Final project reports due.