Course Outline

Description:
In this course, we will demystify "what is in a box" on our desk these days. We will explore the design details of hardware artifacts such as processors, memories, device interfaces, and I/O subsystems that go into making these boxes.

Specifically, we will cover the following topics:

• CPU Design
  • Review of processor instruction sets and digital logic
  • Computer Arithmetic
  • Datapaths and register files
  • Control units
  • Principles of pipelined design
• Memory hierarchies
  • Processor-memory buses
  • Main memory
  • Cache memories
• Input/Output Subsystems
  • Interrupts and DMA
  • Interfacing devices to CPU