The University of Western Ontario
London, Canada

Department of Computer Science

CS 350 -- Computer Architecture

Course Outline -- Winter 2007

Course Description

• the design and testing of a CPU (without worrying about strictly electronic issues)
• optimization and benchmarking of CPU designs
• seeing how computer design informs choices regarding how to efficiently implement an algorithm on a computer.

Prerequisites, Anti-requisites (if any)

Operating Systems --- Students are expected to have previous experience with some UNIX variation. There is school equipment available if you do not have your own.

Programming Languages --- This course expects previous programming experience in assembly language and Java. Course work will involve programming in Java and may involve some assembly programming as well.

Course Work --- According to the Academic Calendar:

• Computer Science 208
• Computer Science 209
• Computer Science 210 and 211 (or the former Computer Science 201)

ECE 375 is an anti-requisite.

Students are responsible for ensuring that they meet the prerequisite requirements or have obtained appropriate special permission in the event that they don't meet the formal requirements. Students not meeting the requirements nor having the appropriate permission may be dropped from the course as per Senate regulations.

Instructor

    Robert E. Webber
    Office: Room 384, Middlesex College
    Office Hours: To be announced.
    Phone: x86916 (prefer email)
    E-Mail: webber@csd.uwo.ca (use 350 in subject line to get best results from my spam filtering software)

Textbook, Lecture Notes

• Required textbook:
  • Designing Computers -- The Quest for Computational Efficiency by Robert E. Webber (January 2007 (11 December 2006) draft). Available at University Bookstore as custom course material. [Substantial changes have been made over earlier drafts.]

Course Website

http://www.csd.uwo.ca/courses/CS350a/index.html and/or http://www.csd.uwo.ca/courses/CS350b/index.html Announcements related to the course are made on the course web pages. The assignments and exam are marked under the assumption that students are familiar with the material on the course web pages associated with the current semester.

Lecture Topics

• boolean functions, combinational circuits, relays, latches, flipflops, memory, FPGAs, finite state controls, benchmarking, register files, bus-based designs, cache, pipelined designs, Amdahl's law, threading, multicore CPUs, parallel computers, I/O handling, assemblers, interpreters.

Class Schedule

   Lectures: 3 hours (Tuesday 1:30 - 3:30 pm [NCB 117], Thursday 2:30 - 3:30 pm [NCB 117])

   Labs: 0 hours

TA Consulting Hours (to be announced on course announcements page)

Computing Facilities

NOTE: course assignments will require access to the departmental computing facilities for online handin.

Each student will be given an account on the Computer Science Department senior undergraduate computing facility, GAUL .  In accepting the GAUL account, a student agrees to abide by the department's  Rules of Ethical Conduct .

Note:  After-hours access to certain Computer Science lab rooms is by student card. If a student card is lost,  a replacement card will no longer open these lab rooms, and the student must bring the new card to a member of the Systems Group in Middlesex College Room 346.

Email Contact

We will occasionally need to send email messages to the whole class, or to students individually. Email will be sent to your GAUL or ITS email address (depending on which one comes with the class list). You must make sure that you read your email on GAUL and ITS on a frequent and regular basis, or have it forwarded to an alternative email address if you prefer to read it there.

However, you should note that email at ITS (your UWO account) and other email providers such as hotmail.com or yahoo.com may have quotas or limits on the amount of space they can use. If you let your email accumulate there, your mailbox may fill up and you may lose important email from your instructors.  Losing email that you have forwarded to an alternative email address is not an excuse for not knowing about the information that was sent.

Student Evaluation

• There will be three computer assignments, each counting 10% for a total of 30% of the computed mark. The mark of the computer assignment will be marked in one of two ranges:
  • Designs that do not pass all test data will be marked in the range 0 to 4.9
  • Designs that do pass all test data will be marked in the range 5 to 10.
  Assignments that pass all my test data will be marked with regards to clearness of design and accompanying documentation and efficiency. Assignments that do not pass all my test data will be marked with regards to clearness of design and accompanying documentation and quality of testing presented in the design verification documentation.

  The first assignment will be a group assignment. The groups will be randomly assigned by the professor once the official class roster is available. The groups will typically be of size 3 or 4. The remaining assignments can be done either individually or in groups of your own choosing. In the remaining assignments, an additional marking criteria will be the size of the group doing the work (a larger group should be able to do better work than if the same people did the work individually -- the marking scheme will aim at de-emphasizing this advantage of large groups over smaller groups).

  Working in groups and not declaring the group would be fraudulent behaviour and handled as an academic offense. The work handed in is assumed to be your individual work unless you list under your name on the title page the other members of your group. For more details on required formats and hand in policies, see the assignment spec.

  The assignments are due to be handed in online by midnight (end of day) on the designated Monday. Late penalties are then as follows:

  • 5 percent reduction for up to Tuesday midnight (one day late)
  • 10 percent reduction for up to Wednesday midnight (two days late)
  • 20 percent reduction for up to Thursday midnight (three days late)
  • 40 percent reduction for up to Friday midnight (four days late)
  • handins after Friday midnight can be made for the purposes of getting feedback on whether one's project is finally working (although it would be too late for a mark).
• There will be 8 in-class quizzes, counting in total 35% of the mark. See course schedule for how many and when the quizzes will be. Each quiz counts equally and should take roughly 20 minutes. Missed quizzes will be counted as taken with a score of 0. When calculating the final course mark, the two quizzes with the lowest mark will have their score replaced by either the average of the remaining quizzes or the score on the final exam (whichever is higher). The quizzes will be closed book/no notes/no electronic devices (just like the final exam).

  Should a catastrophic event cause you to miss 3 or more quizzes and said event be documented with the Dean's office and found sufficient to warrant mark adjustment, then, at the discretion of the instructor, the excused missed quizzes may be replaced by the final exam mark. Similarly, if the SSD office sends documentation indicating that normally you require extra time for testing, then the quizzes will be administered with the regular timing, but if the mark on the final exam (optionally proctored by SSD) is better than the cumulative quiz mark, then the final exam will replace the entire quiz portion of the course mark.

• There will be a 3-hour comprehensive final exam, counting 35% of the mark. The Final Exam will be closed book/no notes. Electronic devices (including calculators, cell phones, and PDAs) will not be permitted. It is expected to be comprehensive covering both the material arising from the Computer Design text and from the Course Readings papers. If the final exam is not taken, then a zero is recorded as the mark for the course.
• Exceptions:
  • Students whose average mark on the quizzes given up to (not including) the week of the first assignment handin is in the top half of the class, who handed in the first assignment on time, and are interested in doing something other than the regularly assigned second assignment for that portion of their mark should discuss the possibility with the professor during that week. If something mutually agreeable can be worked out, it would need to be settled by Friday afternoon of that week.
  • Students whose average mark on the quizzes given up to (not including) the week of the second assignment handin is in the top half of the class, who handed in the second assignment on time, and are interested in doing something other than the regularly assigned third assignment for that portion of their mark should discuss the possibility with the professor during that week. If something mutually agreeable can be worked out, it would need to be settled by Friday afternoon of that week.
  • Students whose average mark on all the quizzes given during the semester and all the assignments that have been marked at the time the last quiz is handed back -- if said student's average mark is in the top quarter of the class and if they would like to do a project rather than the final exam should discuss the matter with the professor. If something mutually agreeable can be worked out, it would need to be settled before the end of classes (from a timing point of view, the sooner the better). In the event that such a project is set, it would be due a week before the scheduled final exam. In the event the project was more than two days late, the student's mark will revert to being based on the final exam in accordance with the normal marking scheme.
  For purposes of calculating the above averages, missed quizzes are counted as zeroes and late penalties are included as part of assignment marks. When quizzes and assignments are to be averaged, they will be weighted equally.
• Administrative penalties associated with not following the instructions on exams will not exceed 10% of the value of the exam. Academic offences related to the exams will be handled through the Dean's office. Typical first offense penalty is minus the value of the assignment, which in the case of the exams would mean failing the course.
• No mark will exceed 100%. Bonuses and administrative penalties are applied to the marks before any exam curving is done. Academic offense penalties are applied after curving.

If for any reason an assignment, quiz, or midterm is cancelled, the percentage of the course mark associated with that task will be added to the portion associated with the final exam.

As usual, assignments and exams will be marked and returned as soon as convenient. As usual, final exam and final course marks will not be made available until the department posts the final course marks or the registrar's office makes marks available.

 Exam / Essay / Test / Quiz Schedule

• [W01, Tu] 9 Jan 2007: First day of classes
• [W02, Tu] 16 Jan 2007: last day to add
• 18 Jan 2007: verify roster (be sure and attend this day; if you have to miss, send email letting me know you are in.) Expect email soon notifying you of who is in your group for the first project.
• [W03, Tu] 23 Jan 2007: First quiz
• [W04, Tu] 30 Jan 2007: Second quiz
• [W05, Tu] 6 Feb 2007: Third quiz
• 12 Feb 2007: Used to be: First assignment due by end of day. [see 19 Feb 2007]
• [W06, Tu] 13 Feb 2007: Fourth quiz
• 15 Feb 2007: Last day to drop [check official university calendar to be sure if this matters to you.]
• 19 Feb 2007: First assignment due by end of day. [change made 8 Feb 2007]
• [W07, Tu] 20 Feb 2007: Fifth quiz
• 26 Feb -- 2 Mar 2007: Reading Week
• [W08, Tu] 6 Mar 2007: Sixth quiz
• [W09, Tu] 13 Mar 2007: Seventh quiz
• 19 Mar 2007: Second assignment due by end of day.
• [W10, Tu] 20 Mar 2007: Eight quiz
• [W11, Tu] 27 Mar 2007
• [W12, Tu] 3 Apr 2007
• 9 Apr 2007: Third assignment due by end of day.
• [W13, Tu] 10 Apr 2007
• 12 Apr 2007: Last day of classes
• Final Exam: during the regular university final exam period. exact time and place to be announced by the university.

As per the Academic Calendar, students missing a final exam should report this irregularity `immediately' to their Dean's office. In this course, students seeking a makeup final exam are further required to report that this is the case to their professor via email within 3 days (72 hours) of the occurrence of the exam. [Students in a coma for more than 3 days or with similar excuses should seek an exemption through the Dean's office.] The message must also include the name of the person at the Dean's office who is handling the case. Also, the message must include a list of all other exams the student is currently scheduled to take. Students are expected to promptly make available to the Dean's office whatever evidence they require to judge the situation and be ready to take the makeup exam if the Dean's office approves it.

Although the material covered on the makeup final exam will be the same as the regular final exam, university regulations do not require that the format be the same. Since the number of people taking the makeup will be fewer, it is much more likely that the makeup will be heavily weighted toward essay-style questions, if the original final exam was a written exam. Note that university regulations do require taking proficiency in English into account when assigning grades.

Assignment  Schedule

• All three assignments will be available as soon as possible.
• See discussion of late assignments under Student Evaluation. Procedural problems such as jammed printers should be brought to the immediate attention of the instructor, who may exact a small penalty for not being properly prepared.

    Extensions: Extensions will be granted only by the course instructor. If you have serious medical or compassionate grounds for an extension, you should take supporting documentation to the office of the Dean of your faculty, who will contact the instructor.

Ethical Conduct

All assignments are individual assignments in that each student is individually responsible for handing in their assignment. Students may work in groups on assignments, see discussion under Student Evaluation for more details.

Assignments will be marked on both content and style. Assignments that are judged to be the result of academic dishonesty will, for the student's first offence, be given a mark of zero with an additional penalty equal to the weight of the assignment also being applied. You are responsible for reading and respecting the Computer Science Department's policy on  Scholastic Offences  and Rules of Ethical Conduct.

For additional departmental policies or procedural wording that I may have overlooked, see http://www.csd.uwo.ca/~aija/COTemplate.htm as well as http://www.csd.uwo.ca/~aija/policies.html. If there is a contradiction between this document and the policies indicated above, please let the instructor know by email soonest.