Course Outline

The course provides the study of the structure, characteristics and operation of modern day computer systems including a basic background on the computers evolution, its design process and its internal characteristics which includes processor components, control unit architecture, memory organization and system organization. The concept of reduced instruction set computers (RISC), superscalar processors and superpipelining is explained in detail. The benefits of parallel processing and multicore processors are considered.

On successful completion of this course students should be able to:

• Describe design principles for different instruction sets
  
• Discuss different register organizations
  
• Identify processor and register organizations
  
• Describe instrcution pipelining and identify pipeline hazards
  
• Discuss RISC/CISC processors
  
• Explain superscalar execeution and  superpipeline approaches
  
• Identify symmetric multiprocessors and cache coherency protocols
  
• Discuss Cluster and NUMA organizations
  
• Describe multiple processor organizations
• Discuss multicore organizations

• The course has three hours of lectures in a week mainly held in the form of a seminar.
• There is no lab works or tutorials
• There is one written midterm exam and one written final exam.
• The exams are conducted as a written exam that may contain multiple choice, fill in the blanks, short answer and writing essay questions.
• There is an individual term project.
• You should find a recent conference/journal paper (published in the last 5 years) related to Computer Architecture and Hardware.
• The selected paper should be sent as an e-mail to husnu.bayramoglu@emu.edu.tr and wait for the confirmation.
• Once the topic is confirmed, you can start studying the topic and prepare a written report.
• The printed report should be submitted before the announced deadline.
• Late submissions will not be accepted.
• Project grade is out of 25%.
• The report should be between 3500-4000 words with the format provided in the report template on the web site.
• Turnitin plagiarism test must be obtained before submission.
• The plagiarism test result should be less than 20%.
• No reports will be accepted for consideration with higher plagiarism test result.
• An account will be created for you to make the plagiarism test through Turnitin.
• The work done for the project should be presented.
• The duration will be about 15 minutes for each student.
• Presentation grade is out of 10%.
• Class attendance is compulsory.
• Course related materials will be posted on the course web site.
  

Text Book:

William Stallings, Computer Organization and Architecture-Designing for Performance, Ninth Edition, Pearson Higher Education, 2013. ISBN 13: 978-0-13-293633-0

• Each student can have only one make-up exam. One who misses an exam should provide a medical report within 3 days after the missed exam.
• The make-up exam will be organized at the end of the term after the finals and will cover all the topics.
• No make-up exam will be given for any quiz or assignment.
• Once the grades are announced, the students have only one week to do objection about their grades.
• It is the students' responsibility to follow the announcement in the course web site.
• Students who do not pass the course and fail to attend the lectures regularly may be given NG grade.