Rhodes University Computer Science Architecture
Architectire
Architecture (Prof Philip Machanick)
This course covers fundamentals of instruction set design, memory architecture and how the various components interact in achieving performance goals – whether speed, cost or energy. Practical components focus on how the RISC-V architecture has aimed to improve on previous designs. We will use simulations to study performance impacts of design decisions.
The aim of the course is to leave you with an appreciation of how to make a suitable choice among existing designs as well of research in computer architecture.
Contents:
• Instruction set architectures and design principles
• Layers of architecture
• Modes of parallelism
• Memory hierarchy
Prerequisites: introductory computer architecture, C or C++ programming in a Unix environment.