Computer Organization & Architecture

Computer Fundamentals: Development history of computer hardware and software. Hardwired vs. stored program concept. Von-Neuman architecture. Havard architecture: principle of operation, advantages, disadvantages. Single address machine. Contemporary computers. Computer system: block diagram, functions, examples, dataflow, control line. Computer Arithmetic: integer arithmetic (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division), floating-point representation (IEEE), floating-point arithmetic. arithmetic and logic unit (ALU).

Introduction to CISC and RISC architecture: principle of operation, merits, demerits. Storage and Input/Output Systems: Computer function (fetch and execute cycles), interrupts, interconnection structures (Bus structure and bus types), Overview of memory system, memory chip organization and error correction, cache memory, memory storage devices. Overview of I/O, programmed and interrupt-driven I/Os, DMA, I/O channel and I/O processor. Control Unit: Microoperations, control of the CPU, hardwired implementation, control unit operation, micro-instruction sequencing and execution, micro-programmed control. Use INTEL family, and MOTOROLA family as case study of a CISC computer system.

Instruction Set and Register: Machine instruction characteristics, types of operands and operations, instruction functions, addressing modes, instruction formats, register organization, instruction pipelining. High performance computer systems

Techniques to achieve high performance, pipelining, storage hierarchy, units with function dedicated for I/O. RISC, introduction to superscalar processor, parallel processor. Use popular RISC processor (e.g. i960, Motorola PowerPC) as case study.

Operating System: Overview of operating system, dimension and type of operating system, high level scheduling, short-term scheduling, I/O scheduling, memory management, virtual memory, UNIX/LINUX operating system: architecture, commands, programming; window based operating systems (MS windows,).