ETH Zürich/Computer Science/Computer Architecture

News

2007-02-13: OpenMP is not part of the exam material.
2007-02-05: As announced in class, we offer office hours for your questions regarding the exam.
2007-02-05: Exam dates:
- Mon, 2007-03-05, 09:00-12:00, ETA F5: Computer archtitecture
- Wed, 2007-03-07, 14:00-17:00, ETA F5: System programming
2007-02-01: icc is now available on optimus and all student machine in IFW and CAB.
2007-01-24: Note room change: The recitation on Monday, 2007-01-29, 13:15-15:00, is held for all groups in IFW A36.
2007-01-09: Preliminary exam dates:
- Mon, 2007-03-05: Computer archtitecture
- Wed, 2007-03-07: System programming
2007-01-03: Happy New Year. The schedule of the lectures has been updated.
2006-11-21: Note change of lecture schedule! The C tutorial lecture from Thurdsay (Nov 23) is again swapped with the Friday lecture (Nov 24).
2006-11-21: Homework 2 (SP): The multFiveEights puzzle had wrong test parameters. An updated decl.c file is available. Also, the btest.c file has been updated to test the functions more thoroughly. The hw2.tar.gz package has been updated accordingly.
2006-11-20: An updated version of the master solution for Assignment 1 is available. It should not cause any troubles with printing. Thank you for your feedback!
2006-11-15: The C Tutorial lecture from Thursday (Nov 16) is swapped with the CA lecture from Friday (Nov 17). The C Tutorial this Friday will use two lecture hours, whereas the CA lecture on Thursday takes only one hour.
2006-10-30: The slides for the recitation sessions are available.
2006-10-30: This week optimus.inf.ethz.ch is being migrated to a new version. It may not work properly -- some students reported problems with their home directories. The machine will be stable by next week.
2006-10-27: Slides for the C-tutorial on Thursday (Nov 2) are available.
2006-10-27: Please bring your laptop to the recitation sessions on Monday (CA, Oct 30) and Tuesday (SP, Oct 31).
2006-10-27: Please check your account data in the Chair o'Peer system for missing names, typos, etc. Your account data must consist of first name, last name, email address (nethz-account).
2006-10-26: Please sign up for a recitation group using the Chair o'Peer system. The registration for both courses (CA/SP) is open from 2pm today until 8am on Monday, October 30.

Course overview

This course provides an overview of "computer architecture" as a platform for the execution of (compiled) computer programs. The course introduces the major structures that have direct influence on the execution of programs (processors with registers, caches, other levels of the memory hierarchy) and covers implementation and representation issues only to the extend that they are necessary to understand the structure and operation of a computer system. The course covers the basics of performance evaluation (with a focus on the practical aspects of data collection and analysis).

This course does NOT cover how to design or build a processor or computer. Students are advised to take the course in concurrently with "System-level Programming". Students are expected to have a basic knowledge of statistics and probability theory.

Topics include

Execution of instructions
Memory hierarchy
Representation issues
OS interface
Performance evaluation

Course schedule

The System Programming (SP) course meets in HG F1 every Monday 10:15-11:55 and in HG F7 every Thursday 11:10-11:55.
The Computer Architecture (CA) course meets in HG F5 every Friday 10:15-11:55.

Tentative schedule of lectures

This is a plan. No plan survives contact with reality.

Week	Monday	Thursday	Friday
0		10/26: Admin	10/27: Introduction, Bits and Bytes (tg)
1	10/30:CA Integer Arithmetic (tg)	11/2:SP C Intro I (ta)	11/3:SP Floating Point (ga)
2	11/6:CA Assembly Language I (tg)	11/9:SP C Intro II (ta)	11/10:SP Assembly Language II (tg)
3	11/13:SP Assembly Language III (tg)	11/16:SP Procedure call, continued (tg)	11/17:SP C Intro III (ta)
4	11/20:SP Structured data (ga)	11/23:CA Buffers and other practical issues (tg)	11/24:SP C Intro IV (ta)
5	11/27:CA Sequential Processors (ga)	11/30:CA Sequential Processors (cont) (ga)	12/1:SP Pipelined Processors (ga)
6	12/4:SP Memory Hierarchy 1 (tg)	12/7:CA Memory Hierarchy 2 (tg)	12/8:CA Caches (tg)
7	12/11:SP Optimization 1 (tg)	12/14:CA Optimization 2 (tg)	12/15:CA Optimization, cont. (tg)
8	12/18:CA Linking (ga)	12/21:CA Measuring Program Performance (ga)	12/22:CA Measuring Program Performance (ga)
9		1/4:SP Exceptions I (ga)	1/5:SP Exceptions II (ga)
10	1/8:CA Virtual Memory (tg)	1/11:SP Dynamic Memory Allocation I (tg)	1/12:SP Course Evaluation, History (tg)
11	1/15:SP Dynamic Memory Allocation II (tg)	1/18:CA Extra Topics (tg)	1/19:SP System-level I/O (ga)
12	1/22:CA/SP Test your knowledge	1/25:SP Virtual Machines (ga/rm)	1/26:SP Virtual Memory Case Study (ga)
13	1/29:SP OpenMP I (tg)	2/1:SP OpenMP II (tg)	2/2:CA/SP Past & Future Trends, Multi-Core (tg)

Groups and assistants

Computer Architecture (CA): Monday, 13:15 -- 15:00			System Programming (SP): Tuesday
Room	Assistants	nethz ID	Room	Time	Assistant	nethz ID
IFW C 42	Tobias Abt, Oliver Trachsel	abtt, toliver	HG G 5	1:15 -- 3:00	Matthias Scheller, Michael Duller	schellem, dullerm
ML J 34.1	Gabriel Petrovay, Susanne Cech, Oliver Trachsel	pgabriel, scech, toliver	HG D 3.2	1:15 -- 3:00	Peter Heinrich, Jan S. Rellermeyer	peterhe, rjan
HG G 26.5	Christian Fischlin, Susanne Cech	cfischli, scech	IFW D 42	1:15 -- 3:00	Manuel Hess, René Müller	mhess, muellren
CAB H 56	Lorenz Breu, Yang Su	breul, ysu	IFW B 42	3:15 -- 5:00	Antoine Thomas-Gérard, Biörn Biörnstad	antoinet, bbioern

Recitation sessions

Week	Monday: CA	Tuesday: SP
1	2006-10-30: Introduction	2006-10-31: Introduction to Linux
2	2006-11-06: Integer Arithmetic and Floating Point	2006-11-07: Floating Point Classroom Exercises
3	2006-11-13: Assembly programming revisited	2006-11-14: Round-to-even, Assignment 2
4	2006-11-20: Hints for Assignment 3	2006-11-21: C, Assembly and Stack (classroom exercise, no slides)
5	2006-11-27: Assembly and Stack Classroom Exercise	2006-11-28: Structured Data, Assignment 4
6	2006-12-04: Y86, SEQ, Assignment 5	2006-12-05: Classroom Exercise: Execution tracing in sequential Y86
7	2006-12-11: Classroom Exercise: disks, memory hierarchy	2006-12-12: Hints for the binary bomb lab
8	2006-12-18: PIPE, Assignment7	2006-12-19: Classroom Exercise: Pipeline Hazards
10	2006-01-08: Classroom Exercise: Virtual memory addressing	2006-01-09: Linking, Exceptional Control Flow, Assignment 8
11	2006-01-15: VM, Assignment 9	2006-01-16: Classroom Exercise: Dynamic Memory Allocation (no slides)
12	2006-01-22: Classroom Exercise: Fork, Jumps (no slides)	2006-01-23: Optimization, Assignment 10
12	2006-01-29: OpenMP, Assignment 11	2006-01-30: Q&A: Test your Knowledge

Assignments

Assignments are an important part of the course. You will not learn this material from listening to a lecture alone -- you have to do the assignments.

Note: Do not hesitate to ask your teaching assistant if you have troubles with the assignments!

Your grade will be based on the final (100%).

Number	CA/SP	Out	Due	Description	Solution
1	CA	2006-11-06	2006-11-13	hw1.pdf, fp-sum.tar, polynomial.tar	hw1-solution.pdf
2	SP	2006-11-14	2006-11-28	hw2.pdf, hw2.tar.gz
3	CA	2006-11-20	2006-11-27	hw3-assembly.pdf, ccodes.c	hw3-solution.pdf
4	SP	2006-11-28	2006-12-05	hw4-structureddata.pdf	hw4-solution.pdf
5	CA	2006-12-04	2006-12-11	hw5-seq.pdf, sim.tar, simguide.pdf	hw5-seq-solution.pdf
6	SP	2006-12-12	2006-12-22	hw6-bomblab.pdf, gdbreference.pdf
7	CA	2006-12-18	2007-01-08	hw7-pipe.pdf, sim.tar	hw7-pipe-solution.pdf
8	SP	2007-01-09	2007-01-16	hw8-linking-controlflow.pdf	hw8-solution.pdf
9	CA	2007-01-15	2007-01-22	hw9-vm.pdf	hw9-vm-solution.pdf
10	SP	2007-01-23	2007-01-30	hw10-opt.pdf mmul.c	hw10-opt-solution.pdf code.zip
11	CA	2007-01-29	2007-02-09	hw11-openmp.pdf hw11.zip	hw11-openmp-solution.pdf

Office hours during the semester break

Computer Architecture (CA): Tuesday, 14-16		System Programming (SP): Thursday, 14-16
2007-02-06	Susanne Cech/Oliver Trachsel (RZ H2)	2007-02-08	Michael Duller (IFW B45.2)
2007-02-13	Susanne Cech (RZ H2)	2007-02-15	René Müller (IFW B45.2)
2007-02-20	Oliver Trachsel (RZ H2)	2007-02-22	Jan S. Rellermeyer (IFW B47.1)
2007-02-27	Yang Su (RZ H5)	2007-03-01	Biörn Biörnstad (IFW B48.2)

List of computer rooms with Linux installed

Computer rooms of D-INFK: IFW C31 (24 PCs), IFW C35 (18 PCs), IFW D31 (24 PCs), CAB E37 (11 PCs)
Computer rooms of ETH: HG D13, HG E26.1

Reading material

Computer Systems: A Programmer's Perspective (CS:APP), Randal E. Bryant and David R. O'Hallaron, Prentice Hall, 2003, ISBN 0-13-034074-X. Highly recommended.
The C Programming Language (2nd edition), Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie, Prentice Hall, 1988, ISBN 0131103628.
C: A Reference Manual (4th or 5th edition), Samuel P. Harbison and Guy L. Steele, Prentice Hall; 1994 ISBN 0133262243.
Online books (available within ETHZ or over VPN):
Practical C Programming, Steve Oualline, O'Reilly 1997;
C Primer Plus, Stephen Prata, Sams 2004;
C Pocket Reference, Ulla Kirch-Prinz and Peter Prinz, O'Reilly 2002;
Advanced Linux Programming, Mark Mitchell, Jeffrey Oldham and Alex Samuel, Sams 2001
Intel publishes a lot of material covering the IA32/Pentium processors. The official web site for Pentium4 documentation is here, a few manuals are cached locally.

251-0051: Computer Architecture