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.

Not applicable

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. (2020). Computer Organization and Design (MIPS Edition): The Hardware/Software Interface (6th ed.). Morgan Kaufmann Publishers Inc., San Francisco, CA, USA