CSCI 6461 Section 12 Fall 2025
CRN 33348

Meets in Room B16 - 1957 E Street NW  Wednesdays 6:10PM-8:40PM

Course Outline and Schedule


Course Video Links

Date

Topic

References

8/27

Introduction

  • Administrative topics
  • Basic Concepts and History
  • Class Project Discussion

For Next Week

  1. At break and end of class meet with other team members
  2. Review course material and develop questions
  3. If a warm up is assigned be sure to take it

Lecture 0 Administrative

Class Project   Class Project Instruction Set Architecture

Project Grading Rubric

Term Paper Sample Topics   

Lecture 1 Basic Concepts

Assignment 1 - Stretch Computer (IBM Stretch)

Create A Mapping in a two column matrix form with the Computer Architecture features contained in the IBM Stretch Video abo e in the first column assoicated with the Lecture Numbers and Titles below where we will study those concepts.  This is an individual project.

Project Teams 

9/3

 Basic System Design
Assignment 1 Due Midnight 9/2

Lecture 2 Basic System Design

Link to supplemental files

9/10

 Instruction Set Architecture


Term Paper Topic Due Midnight 9/13

Appendix K Survey of Instruction Set Architectures

Lecture 3 Instruction Set Architecture

Link to supplemental files

9/17

 *Project Part 0 (assembler) Due Midnight 9/20

Memory System Design:

  • Multilevel memory
  • Basic cache structure and design
  • Cache performance
  • Replacement policies

H&P Chapter 2, Appendix B (internal to Book)

Lecture 4  Memory System Design

Link to supplemental files

9/24
I/O System Design
 Light Coverage on Final

Lecture 6 I/O Systems

Link to supplemental files

10/1


Improving Performance

Pipelining,

General Considerations,

Instruction and Arithmetic Pipelines with examples

H&P 3, Appendix A, Appendix H

Lecture 7 Performance Improvements

MIPS Overview
Pipelining
 Dependencies
Compiler Techniques
 More Static Technique

Link to supplemental files

Link to External Videos Related To Performance Improvements
10/8

Improving Performance

Pipelining,
General Considerations,

Instruction and Arithmetic Pipelines with examples

*Project Part 1 Due Midnight 10/11

Tomasulo Worksheet

Lecture 8 Instruction Level Parallelism

Branch Prediction
Dynamic Scheduling

Hardware Speculation

Link to supplemental files

Link to External Videos Related To Performance Improvements

10/15

 Vector Operations



H&P 4.2, 4.3 Appendix G                 

Lecture 9 Vector Operations


Link to supplemental files

Link to External Videos Related To Performance Improvements

10/22

High Performance Computing

*Project Part 2 Due Midnight  10/25

Appendix F

 

Lecture 10 High Performance Computing - Multiprocessors

Interconnect Video (view at 20 minutes into video)

Link to supplemental files

10/29

Multiprocessors

Term Paper Due Midnight 11/1

H&P Chapter 4,  Appendix I


Lecture 11 Multiprocessors

Cache Coherency Snooping Protocol

Cache Coherency Directory Protocol

Link to supplemental files

11/5

Multi core Architectures

 

Lecture 12 Multi core Architectures

Link to supplemental files
11/12

GPU Architectures


H&P Chapter 4

Lecture 13 GPU Architectures

GPU Video

Link to supplemental files
11/19
 FINAL Exam Review

*Project Part 3 Due Midnight 11/22
 Sample Final
Sample Final Coherency Protocol


Final Review Lecture of 17 April
Passcode: knc92nU$

11/26
Thanksgiving - No Class




12/3


FINAL Exam  2- Hours  Timed

*All work  due by 11:59 pm last day of classes 12/08 -  instructor will be grading these