COMPUTER ARCHITECTURE

Knowledge and understanding

• The student will know:
• the basic techniques for the design of combinational and sequential digital circuits.
• the elementary modules that make up a processing system
• the main architectures of the instruction set.
• the basic architectures of RISC processors
• the assembly of an educational processor
• microcontrollers and related development environments

Applied knowledge and understanding

The student will be able to:

• design simple combinational and synchronous sequential circuits
• evaluate the performance of a computer
• write programs in the assembly language of a compatible Intel x386 processor
• use the development environment of a microcontroller

Autonomy of judgment

The student will be able to evaluate the impact of architectural choices on the performance of computers.

Communication skills

The student will be able to explain in a clear and rigorous way the acquired knowledge and the ways in which to apply these for the design of simple processing systems.

Ability to learn

The student will be able to independently learn:

• additional basic characteristics of the processor architectures
• the assembly of other processors

Part I - Design of digital systems

1.1 Design of combinatorial networks

Switching algebra. Minimum Boolean expressions. Minimization using the Karnaugh and Quine-McCluckey maps method.

1.2 Design of synchronous sequential networks

Introduction to sequential machines. The memory elements: the bistables. Synthesis of synchronous sequential networks. Minimization of finite state machines.

Part II - Computer architecture

2.1 The computer: abstraction and technologies

The types of calculators and their characteristics. The components of an electronic computer and their organization. Evaluation of the performance of a computer. Amdhal's law.

2.2 The computer language: Assembly

Instruction Set of processors. Instruction Set Architecture Intel x386. Creating and running executable Assembler, linker and loader. Configuration of the development environment for Linux. X386 instructions, Subroutine calls and System Call. Access to memory. Array. Strings. Stack Management.

2.3 Computer organization

Sequential organization of a processor. Datapath of a sequential processor. Control unit of a sequential processor. Pipeline organization of a processor.

2.4 The memory subsystem.

Static and dynamic RAM memories. Asynchronous and synchronous memories. Memory organization. Cache memories. Block placement, block identification, block replacement and writing policies. Memory performance evaluation. Techniques for improving cache performance.

2.5. The Input / Output subsystem:

Polling. Interrupts. Interrupt vector. Interrupt priority management. Direct Memory Access (DMA).

2.6 Microcontrollers

Microprocessors vs Microcontrollers (MCU). General characteristics of an MCU. Block diagram and on-chip integrated peripherals. Embedded Core. Memory. General Purpose IO (GPIO). Timers and Counters. Serial communication interfaces and peripherals. Development environment for microcontrollers - writing simple programs for managing GPIOs and peripherals.

[T1] Fummi, Sami, Silvano, “Progettazione digitale”, 2/ed McGraw-Hill

[T2] Patterson, Hennessy, “Computer organization and design”

[T3] Bucci, “Architettura e organizzazione dei calcolatori elettronici: fondamenti”, McGraw-Hill 

[T4] Online learning resources provided by teacher

The exam consists of a single written and computer test.

First part (11 points)

• three questions on logical networks;

Second part (21 points)

• a question about assembly programming;
• a question about calculating the performance of computers;
• a question on computer architectures;
• a question about microcontrollers

To pass the test it is necessary to obtain a minimum score of 18, with at least 6/11 points for the questions on logic networks and at least 12/21 points for the rest of the task.

Distance learning could be used if COVID emergency requires it