Class Advanced Computer Architectures

This curricular unit completes the subjects previously addressed in the Course Units of Digital Systems and Computer Architecture. The concepts addressed are of higher level and the topics are current and actual - used in practice in nowadays CPUs. The understanding of these advanced concepts of computer architecture makes students aware of the limitations and possibilities of the hardware. As a result, they will be able to create more efficient programs, capable of taking advantage of the hardware's capabilities and taking into account any hardware limitations.

1. Introduction
2. The processor
    Main functional units
    Pipeline and hazards
    Exceptions
    Instructionlevel
    parallelism
3. Memory hierarchy
    Storage devices and technology: magnetic disk, flash memory
    Cache memory
    Virtual memory
    Dependability in the memory hierarchy
    Parallelism: cache coherence, RAID
4. Parallel architectures
    Clock speed, power dissipation, and memory limits
    Parallelism and the limits to performance improvements
    SIMD and vector processors
    Hardware multithreading
    Multiprocessor architectures¿ clusters and grid computing.
    GPUs
    Performance measurement
5. Virtualization
    Origin and definition of the virtual machine concept
    Hypervisor
    Implementation variations
    System virtualization: processor, memory, and peripheral devices (I/O)

Practical assignements with peer assessment

Practical assignments that involve interaction with physical electronic components

• David A. Patterson and John L. Hennessy. (2013). Computer Organization and Design, Fifth Edition: The Hardware/Software Interface (5th ed.). Morgan Kaufmann Publishers Inc., San Francisco, CA, USA