Description

In this course, you will learn to design the computer architecture of complex modern microprocessors.
All the features of this course are available for free. It does not offer a certificate upon completion.

Syllabus

• Introduction, Instruction Set Architecture, and Microcode
• This lecture will give you a broad overview of the course, as well as the description of architecture, micro-architecture and instruction set architectures.
• Pipelining Review
• This lecture covers the basic concept of pipeline and two different types of hazards.
• Cache Review
• This lecture covers control hazards and the motivation for caches.
• Superscalar 1
• This lecture covers cache characteristics and basic superscalar architecture.
• Superscalar 2 & Exceptions
• This lecture covers the common issues for superscalar architecture.
• Superscalar 3
• This lecture covers different kinds of architectures for out-of-order processors.
• Superscalar 4
• This lecture covers the common methods used to improve the performance of out-of-order processors including register renaming and memory disambiguation.
• VLIW 1
• This lecture covers the basic concept of very long instruction word (VLIW) processors.
• VLIW2
• This lecture covers the common methods used to improve VLIW performance.
• Branch Prediction
• This lecture covers the motivation and implementation of branch predictors.
• Advanced Caches 1
• This lecture covers the advanced mechanisms used to improve cache performance.
• Advanced Caches 2
• This lecture covers more advanced mechanisms used to improve cache performance.
• Memory Protection
• This lecture covers memory management and protection.
• Vector Processors and GPUs
• This lecture covers the vector processor and optimizations for vector processors.
• Multithreading
• This lecture covers different types of multithreading.
• Parallel Programming 1
• This lecture covers the concepts of parallelism, consistency models, and basic parallel programming techniques.
• Parallel Programming 2
• This lecture covers the solutions for the consistency problem in parallel programming.
• Small Multiprocessors
• This lecture covers the implementation of small multiprocessors.
• Multiprocessor Interconnect 1
• This lecture covers the design of interconnects for a multiprocessor.
• Multiprocessor Interconnect 2
• This lecture covers the design of interconnects for multiprocessor and network topology.
• Large Multiprocessors (Directory Protocols)
• This lecture covers the motivation and implementation of directory protocol used for coherence on large multiproccesors.