Basic Information

  • Course Code: EE 739
  • Course Name: Advanced Processor Design
  • Course Offered In: 2023-‘24
  • Semester Season: Autumn
  • Instructors: Prof. Virendra Singh
  • Prerequisites: EE224, EE309 (core courses)
  • Difficulty (1 being easy and 5 being tough): 4

Course Content

VLIW design, Superscalar architecture, Multi-core Architecture, Network on Chip, GPU architecture, GPGPU paradigm

Feedback on Lectures

The lectures were very engaging, though they required a high level of concentration. Skipping any of his classes is not recommended, avoid this as much as possible. The professor holds a certain amount of extra classes, which are not at the most convenient of times, so students must be willing to take this extra effort. He does provide slides, though they are not of the exact course content that he covers, and it is best recommended to take notes, and only use the slides as an additional help. External sources such as reference books are also a great help in understanding the course. The professor is very willing to solve any and all doubts and discussions students may have, and encourages this.

Feedback on Evaluations

The evaluation consists of 5-6 surprise quizzes held randomly through the semester, a midsem, an endsem, and a project. Every exam is open-book, closed internet, reasonably no restriction of time. They all require good grasp of the concepts. The most important evaluation is the project. It is recommended to begin the project post the superscalar CPU topic, and its submission would be a week or so post endsem. There is also a viva based on it, and a huge part of the grade depends on how much one accomplishes in the project.

Study Material and Resources

John Paul Shen, Mikko H. Lipasti - Modern Processor Design_ Fundamentals of Superscalar Processor

Follow-up Courses

EE748

Final Takeaway

This course should be taken if one wants to complete their ‘digital profile’, and it nicely rounds off the previous courses, since it follows the real-life timeline of development in this domain. That said, effort required for this course is generally pretty consistent through the semester, and peaks post-endsem during the project.