Spring 2004: CS 7960-4 Special Topics: High-Performance Architectures

General Information:

Overview:

CS7960 is a graduate course intended for graduate and advanced undergraduate students interested in exploring important issues in the design of modern microprocessors. This course picks up where CS6810 leaves off, with an in-depth treatment of hot research topics in the field. Each week, we will cover 2-3 seminal papers that advanced the state-of-the-art in the past decade. Students will be expected to read the papers before the instructor presents it in the class. Students taking the course for credit will have to complete a project.

Grading

The following is a tentative guideline and may undergo changes. 50% of the course grade will depend on the project. This will involve the use of architectural simulators to evaluate and analyze novel research ideas. Students doing a good job on this will be encouraged to submit their papers to one of the ISCA workshops (May deadlines), and accepted papers will earn an all-expense paid trip to Munich, Germany. :-)

A final exam will account for 20% of your grade. 5% will be based on class participation. The remaining 25% will be based on paper critiques you submit at the start of each lecture (a standard template questionnaire will be provided). The questionnaire will test your ability to think critically about the problem at hand.

List of Topics

The following is a tentative list of topics. This may undergo changes depending on student interests.

Class Schedule