Course syllabus adopted 2024-01-23 by Head of Programme (or corresponding).
Overview
- Swedish nameDatorarkitektur
- CodeDAT105
- Credits7.5 Credits
- OwnerMPHPC
- Education cycleSecond-cycle
- Main field of studyComputer Science and Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Software Engineering
- DepartmentCOMPUTER SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING
- GradingTH - Pass with distinction (5), Pass with credit (4), Pass (3), Fail
Course round 1
- Teaching language English
- Application code 86115
- Block schedule
- Open for exchange studentsYes
Credit distribution
Module | Sp1 | Sp2 | Sp3 | Sp4 | Summer | Not Sp | Examination dates |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0107 Project 1.5 c Grading: UG | 1.5 c | 0 c | 0 c | 0 c | 0 c | 0 c | |
| 0207 Examination 6 c Grading: TH | 6 c | 0 c | 0 c | 0 c | 0 c | 0 c |
|
In programmes
- MPALG - COMPUTER SCIENCE - ALGORITHMS, LANGUAGES AND LOGIC, MSC PROGR, Year 1 (elective)
- MPALG - COMPUTER SCIENCE - ALGORITHMS, LANGUAGES AND LOGIC, MSC PROGR, Year 2 (elective)
- MPCSN - COMPUTER SYSTEMS AND NETWORKS, MSC PROGR, Year 1 (compulsory elective)
- MPCSN - COMPUTER SYSTEMS AND NETWORKS, MSC PROGR, Year 2 (elective)
- MPEES - EMBEDDED ELECTRONIC SYSTEM DESIGN, MSC PROGR, Year 1 (compulsory elective)
- MPEES - EMBEDDED ELECTRONIC SYSTEM DESIGN, MSC PROGR, Year 2 (elective)
- MPHPC - HIGH-PERFORMANCE COMPUTER SYSTEMS, MSC PROGR, Year 1 (compulsory)
Examiner
- Per Stenström
- Full Professor, Computer and Network Systems, Computer Science and Engineering
Eligibility
General entry requirements for Master's level (second cycle)Applicants enrolled in a programme at Chalmers where the course is included in the study programme are exempted from fulfilling the requirements above.
Specific entry requirements
English 6 (or by other approved means with the equivalent proficiency level)Applicants enrolled in a programme at Chalmers where the course is included in the study programme are exempted from fulfilling the requirements above.
Course specific prerequisites
Computer Organization and Design with a foundation in basic computer architecture design principles (pipelining and cache memory) corresponding to the Chalmers course EDA332/EDA331.Aim
Computers are a key component in almost any technical system today because of their functional flexibility as well as ability to execute fast in a power efficient way. In fact, the computational performance of computers has doubled every 18 months over the last several decades. One important reason is progress in computer architecture, which is the engineering discipline on computer design, which conveys principles for how to convert the raw speed of transistors into application software performance through computational structures that exploit the parallelism in software. This course covers the important principles for how to design a computer that offers high performance to the application software.Learning outcomes (after completion of the course the student should be able to)
- master concepts and structures in modern computer architectures in order to follow the research advances in this field;
- understand the principles behind a modern microprocessor; especially advanced pipelining techniques that can execute multiple instructions in parallel in order to be able to establish performance of computer systems;
- understand the principles behind modern memory hierarchies in order to be able to assess performance of computer systems;
- proficiency in quantitatively establishing the impact of architectural techniques on the performance of application software using state-of-the-art simulation tools;
- ability to cooperate in diverse group compositions with team members with different skills, cultural and educational backgrounds, gender and nationality
Content
The course covers architectural techniques essential for achieving high performance for application software. It also covers simulation-based analysis methods for quantitative assessment of the impact a certain computer architectural technique has on performance and power consumption. The content is divided into the following parts: 1. The first part covers trends that affect the evolution of computer technology including Moore s law, metrics of performance (execution time versus throughput) and power consumption, benchmarking as well as fundamentals of computer performance such as Amdahl s law and locality of reference. It also covers how simulation based techniques can be used to quantitatively evaluate the impact of design principles on computer performance. 2. The second part covers various techniques for exploitation of instruction-level parallelism (ILP) by defining key concepts for what ILP is and what limits it. The techniques covered fall into two broad categories: dynamic and static techniques. Dynamic techniques covered are Tomasulo s algorithm, branch prediction, and speculation. Static techniques are loop unrolling, software pipelining, trace scheduling, and predicated execution. 3. The third part deals with memory hierarchies. This part covers techniques to attack the different sources of performance bottlenecks in the memory hierarchy such as techniques to reduce the miss rate, the miss penalty, and the hit time. Example techniques covered are lockup-free caches, prefetching and virtually addressed caches. Also main memory technologies are covered in this part. 4. The fourth part deals with multicore/multithreaded architectures. At the system level it deals with the programming model and how processor cores on a chip can communicate with each other through a shared address space. At the micro architecture level it deals with different approaches for how multiple threads can share architectural resources: fine-grain/coarse-grain and simultaneous multithreading. We also introduce the concept of cache coherence and fundamental approaches to implement it.Organisation
The course is organized into lectures, exercises, case studies and three laboratory assignments. Lectures focus on fundamental concepts and structures. Exercises provide in-depth analysis of the concepts and structures and train the students in problem solving approaches. Case studies are based on state of the art computers that are documented in the scientific literature. Students carry out the case studies and present them in plenary sessions to fellow students and the instructors. Finally, students get familiar with simulation methodologies and tools used in industry to analyze the impact of design decisions on computer performance. This is trained in a sequence of labs.Literature
M. Dubois, M. Annavaram, P. Stenström. Parallel Computer Organization and Design. Cambridge Press, 2012.Examination including compulsory elements
Approved labs and written examThe final grade is based on the results of the exam, to which bonus points can be added for higher grades (see below). For grade 3, at least 40% of the total score on the exam is required. For grade 4, at least 60% of the total score on the exam is required and for grade 5, at least 80% of the total score on the exam is required. You can receive 4 bonus points if you answered correctly at least 3 quizzes given during lecture time. You can receive an additional 4 bonus points if you orally present the case study to the other course participants. These bonus points are added to the result on the exam and can be used for higher grades but not to pass the course. To be approved on the entire course, the labs (1.5 ECTS) and the exam (6 ECTS) must be approved. The grade of the entire course is the same as the grade of the exam.
The course examiner may assess individual students in other ways than what is stated above if there are special reasons for doing so, for example if a student has a decision from Chalmers on educational support due to disability.