18-447 Course Schedule, Spring 2021 (**Not Most Recent**)

Reading assignments are to be completed BEFORE coming to class. (P&H=Computer Organization and Design RISC-V Edition: The Hardware Software Interface, 2nd Edition by Patterson and Hennessy, Morgan Kaufmann/Elsvier.) You may also find it helpful to preview lecture notes from Spring 2020 before class. There will be additional assigned readings from research papers.

  • Part 1: L1~L12 Microrocessors
  • Part 2: L13~L19 Memory and I/O
  • Part 3: L20~L27 Parallel

(If interested, go to Spring 2009 Lecture Notes for lectures (L2, L3, L4) on computer arithmetic)

(Go to the Course Home Page)

(Go to Canvas)


Week Date L# Topic Readings Lab Week
1 2/1 L1 Introduction P&H Ch1 No TA office hours
this week
2/3 L2 RISC-V RV32I ISA P&H Ch2 Lab 1A/B start
2 2/8 L3 Single-Cycle Implementation P&H 4.1~4.4
2/10 L4 ISA Design P&H Ch2
3 2/15 L5 Performance P&H 1.6~1.9 Lab 1A due
2/17 L6 Multi-Cycle Implementations P&H 4.5, Appendix C
4 2/22 L7 Pipelining: Basics P&H 4.6~4.7 Lab 1B due
2/24 L8 Pipelining: Data Hazard and Resolution P&H 4.8
5 3/1 L9 Pipelining: Control Hazard and Resolution P&H 4.9 Lab 2 start
3/3 L10 Pipelining: Branch Prediction P&H 4.9
6 3/8 L11 Pipelining: Exceptions P&H 4.10 and rest mid-Lab 2 check-off
3/10 Midterm 1 in Class
7 3/15 L12 Power and Energy Lab 2 due
3/17 L13 Busses and I/O P&H 6.10
8 3/22 L14 Memory Technology and Organization P&H 5.1, 5.2 Lab 3 start
3/24 L15 Caches P&H 5.3, 5.4
9 3/29 L16 More caches P&H 5.9, 5.13
3/31 L17 VM: protection and paging P&H 5.6~5.8
10 4/5 Break Day; No Classes Lab 3 due
4/7 L18 VM: page tables and TLB P&H 5.6~5.8
11 4/12 L19 VM: survey of systems and security challenges Rest of Ch5 and paper Lab 4 start
4/14 Midterm 2 in class
4/16 Spring Carnival
12 4/19 L20 ILP to multicore
4/21 L21 Parallel Computer Architecture P&H Ch6
13 4/26 L22 Multithreaded Programming Lab 4 status check
4/28 L23 Parallel Performance P&H 5.15
14 5/3 L24 Cache Coherence P&H 5.10 Lab 4 due
5/5 L25 Synchronization P&H 2.11, 5.14
5/11 Midterm 3 during final period; see Canvas


Omitted in 2021

Week Date L# Topic Readings Lab Week
– L26 Interconnect
– L27 Hardware Acceleration