| Abstract | Computer architecture is the science & art of designing and optimizing hardware components and the hardware/software interface to create a computer that meets design goals. This course covers basic components of a modern computing system (memory, processors, interconnects, accelerators). The course takes a hardware/software cooperative approach to understanding and designing computing systems. |
| Learning objective | We will learn the fundamental concepts of the different parts of modern computing systems, as well as the latest major research topics in Industry and Academia. We will extensively cover memory systems (including DRAM and new Non-Volatile Memory technologies, memory controllers, flash memory), parallel computing systems (including multicore processors, coherence and consistency, GPUs), heterogeneous computing, processing-in-memory, interconnection networks, specialized systems for major data-intensive workloads (e.g. graph analytics, bioinformatics, machine learning), etc. |
| Content | The principles presented in the lecture are reinforced in the laboratory through 1) the design and implementation of a cycle-accurate simulator, where we will explore different components of a modern computing system (e.g., pipeline, memory hierarchy, branch prediction, prefetching, caches, multithreading), and 2) the extension of state-of-the-art research simulators (e.g., Ramulator) for more in-depth understanding of specific system components (e.g., memory scheduling, prefetching). |
| Lecture notes | All the materials (including lecture slides) will be provided on the course website: https://safari.ethz.ch/architecture/
The video recordings of the lectures are expected to be made available after lectures. |
| Literature | We will provide required and recommended readings in every lecture. They will mainly consist of research papers presented in major Computer Architecture and related conferences and journals. |
| Prerequisites / Notice | Digital Design and Computer Architecture. |
Performance assessment as a semester course