CSU, Chico Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

EECE 425: Advanced Computer Architecture

Prerequisites:EECE 320 or CSCI 320

Elective

Catalog Description: The application, design, and performance aspects of parallel processor structures, arithmetic pipelining and vector processing units; architectural classification; memory structures, multiprocessor systems; interconnection networks, multiprocessing control and scheduling; parallel algorithms. Formerly ECE 235.

Course Objectives:

• explain instruction set architectures from a design perspective, including memory addressing, operands, and control flow
• explain different classifications of instruction set architectures
• examine instruction level parallelism, and the related issues of data hazards, branch costs, hardware prediction
• examine software support for ILP, including VLIW and similar approaches
• teach memory hierarchy design issues, including caching and virtual memory approaches
• explain multiprocessor and parallel processing architectures

Course Outcomes:

Students shall be able to:

• analyze the design of an instruction set architecture, evaluating it in terms of performance (ABET a, b)
• perform comparative analyses of different instruction set architectures (ABET a, b)
• evaluate code sequences for pipeline hazards and apply standard techniques to resolve them (ABET b, c)
• quantitatively evaluate memory system designs for performance (ABET a, b)
• quantitatively evaluate the performance of multiprocessor architectures (ABET a, b)

Class/Laboratory schedule:

• One hundred and fifty minutes a week lecture

Contribution of Course to Meet the Professional Component:

• Engineering Science: 3 units

Relationship of Course to Program Outcomes and Objective:

This course makes significant contributions the following program outcomes:

• An ability to apply knowledge of math, science and engineering
• An ability to design and conduct experiments as well as to analyze and interpret data
• An ability to design a system, component, or process to meet desired needs

This course supports the achievement of the following elements of the program objective:

• Apply knowledge of mathematics, science, and engineering to identify, formulate, and solve computer engineering problems
• Use industry standard tools to analyze, design, develop and test computer-based systems containing both hardware and software components.
• Achieve success in graduate programs in computer engineering, electrical engineering or computer science.
• Continue to develop their knowledge and skills after graduation in order to succeed personally and contribute to employer success.

Back to Courses

Back to EE flow chart

Back to CMPE flow chart