Basic Information
- Course Code: EE 748
- Course Name: Advanced Topics in Computer Architecture
- Course Offered In: 2023-‘24
- Semester Season: Autumn
- Instructors: Prof. Virendra Singh
- Prerequisites: EE309 (Microprocessors) and either CS683 (Advanced Computer Architecture) or EE739 (Processor Design)
- Difficulty (1 being easy and 5 being tough): 3
Course Content
This is a research-focused course which picks up from where CS683/EE739 ended i.e. SMT and GPGPU architecture. After a couple of weeks of recap, the professor starts discussing research papers in class based on the broad research topics: heterogeneous ISA, reconfigurable chip multiprocessor architecture, TLB prefetching, redundant execution for fault-tolerance, and look-ahead architectures. Other than these topics, the professor also encouraged students to discuss papers from top research conferences such as ISCA and MICRO. The final project involved implementing a research paper using the gem5 multi-core simulator and evaluating it on various SPEC benchmarks.
Feedback on Lectures
Slides were not shared so it is recommended to make notes during the live classes. It is also recommended to note paper names as they are discussed in class. Some of the lectures also involved students presenting papers of their interest from the latest proceedings of top-tier conferences such as ISCA and MICRO.
Feedback on Evaluations
No midsem was conducted in this course. There was a surprise quiz at the end of one of the classes, but it’s uncertain if it was considered for the final evaluation. Students were also asked to write reviews for some of the papers discussed in class. Before the endsem examination, students were given two research papers to read and a large numbers of questions in the exam were based on these two papers. The other questions tested general understanding of computer architecture. The project constituted a large percentage of the evaluation, and there was a final group viva associated with it. Students who showed significant progress in the project were called for a course viva, where the TAs asked questions to test an overall understanding of computer architecture and its recent trends .
Study Material and Resources
Since computer architecture is a very broad field of study, there is no general book which covers everything. Due to the heavy focus on research in this course, it is recommended to read as many papers as possible (preferably top-tier conferences).
Follow-up Courses
This is the highest-level computer architecture course offered by the EE and CS departments.
Final Takeaway
This course is extremely important for anyone who wishes to pursue research in the field of computer architecture. Attending lectures and doing well on the project should lead to a decent grade in this course.