ECS 154A COMPUTER ARCHITECTURE (4) I,
II, III
Lecture: 3 hours
Discussion: 1 hour
Prerequisites: Course ECS
50 or EEC 70, and course ECS
60
Grading: Letter; two midterms (20% each), final exam (40%)
and programming and digital design work (20%)
Catalog Description:
Introduction to digital design. Interfacing of devices for I/O,
memory and memory management. Input/output programming, via wait loops,
hardware interrupts and calls to operating system services. Hardware support
for operating systems software. Only one unit of credit allowed for students
who have taken EEC 170.
Expanded Course Description:
- Combinational and Sequential Digital Design
Boolean algebra, gates. Commonly used MSI circuits such as multiplexers
and decoders. Simple arithmetic circuits. Latches and flip-flops. Use
of simple digital design simulation software to aid in hierarchical system
development.
- Input/Output Programming
Memory-mapped versus separate-address-space I/O. I/O devices. Hardware
interrupts. I/O programming--wait-loop, interrupt-driven, and via calls
to operating system services--for keyboard, video and file access.
- Interfacing
Synchronous and asynchronous buses. Bus arbitration. Coprocessors. Hardware
for I/O, memory and memory-managerment. Decoding of system-level to chip-level
addresses.
- Hardware for Support of Operating Systems
Hardware support to optimize resource usage, and to implement the abstraction
of a separate machine for each user. The role of hardware interrupts to
support a timesharing OS. Use of memory-management hardware, either within-CPU
or via separate MMU, to support efficient and convenient OS memory allocation.
Textbooks:
D. Patterson and J. Hennessy, Computer Organization and Design Hardware/Software the Interface, Elsevier HSS, 2003
Brown, Fundamentals of Digital Logic Custom, McGraw-Hill, 2000
Computer Usage:
Extensive programming and digital design simulation assignments.
Engineering Design Statement:
Students in the course write sophisticated, systems-level programs
according to their own design. They also do extensive development of digital
circuitry (via a simulator), again according to their own design, and analyze
the performance of such circuitry.
ABET Category Content:
Engineering Science: 2 units
Engineering Design: 2 units
Goals:
Students will:
- learn the foundational concepts of digital design, interfacing of devices for I/O, memory and memory management
- learn input/output programming and hardware support for operating systems software
Student Outcomes:
- An ability to apply knowledge of mathematics, science, and engineering
- An ability to design and conduct experiments, as well as to analyze and interpret data
- An ability to design a system, component, or process to meet desired needs within realistic constraints such as economic, environmental, social, political, ethical, health and safety, manufacturability, and sustainability
- An ability to function on multi-disciplinary teams
- An ability to identify, formulate, and solve engineering problems
- A recognition of the need for, and an ability to engage in life-long learning
- A knowledge of contemporary issues
- An ability to use the techniques, skills, and modern engineering tools necessary for engineering practice
Instructors: M.
Farrens, N. Matloff,
B. Mukherjee
Prepared by: M. Farrens, N. Matloff, R. Olsson (Nov. 1996)
Overlap Statement:
This course does not duplicate any existing course.
5/06
Back to Course Descriptions