CSE 490/590 Computer Architecture, Spring 2015
Course Info Projects Schedule Syllabus
News
  • 01/28/15 All materials are moving to Piazza page: piazza.com/buffalo/spring2015/cse490590, no more update except this page.
  • 01/24/15 The first class will be held in Hochstetter Hall 114 on 4 - 4:50pm 01/26/15. Look forward to seeing everyone!
Administrative Information
Lecture:
When: MWF 4:00-4:50 pm
Where: Hochstetter Hall 114 (find the location of Hochstetter Hall link)
Instructor: Wenyao Xu (wenyaoxu@buffalo.edu)
Office: 330 Davis Hall
Instructor Office Hours: Tue 9-11am or by appointment (330 Davis Hall)
TA Office Hours: Tue: 3pm - 4 pm or by appointment (TA area, 302 Davis Hall)

Recitation: (We will hold the recitation partially in the lectures, see our notice)
 When & Where: Tue 10:00 - 10:50 am (Norton 214) - We will EMAIL you the time & location.
 Teaching Assistant: Shixiong Jiang (shixiong@buffalo.edu)
Text Book:

Computer Architecture, Fifth Edition: A Quantitative Approach (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Computer Architecture and Design) (5th Edition), 2011.
John L. Hennessy and David A. Patterson The 5th edition is new and very different than previous editions. USE THE 5TH EDITION. (ISBN: 978-0123838728)

Optional Additional Text:
Modern Processor Design: Fundamentals of Superscalar Processors (Waveland Press) (1st Edition), 2005, reissued 2013. 
John P. Shen and Mikko H. Lipasti (ISBN: 1478607831)
Overview:
Computer architecture is the science and art of selecting and interconnecting hardware components to create a computer that meets functional, performance and cost goals. In this course, you will learn how to completely design a correct single processor computer, including processor datapath, processor control, pipelining optimization, instruction-level parallelism and multi-core, memory/cache systems, and I/O. You are going to see that no magic is required to design a computer. You will learn how to quantitatively measure and evaluate the performance of designs.
Prerequisite:
This course is targeted at senior-level undergraduates and first-year graduate students who already took CSE 341: Computer Organization and CSE: 241 Digital Systems (or CSE379 Introduction to Microprocessor and Microcomputer). Students should have a good working understanding of digital logic, basic processor design and organization, pipelining, and simple cache design. Computer organization, logic design, and the equivalent knowledge are necessary to succeed in computer architecture.