Course Summary
Use a hardware description language to describe and design digital computing systems. Topics include: processor design, pipelining, cache and storage systems, instruction, thread, and process level parallelism, speculation, and branch prediction.
Course Objectives
- Students will be able to express designs based on classical computer architectural concepts using appropriate engineering tools. (EAC a, b, c, k) (CAC a, c, i)
- Students will be able to explain and apply fundamental architectural principles such as locality, optimizing common cases, and parallelism to modern architecture design. (EAC a, e) (CAC a)
Textbook
Recommended Textbooks
- Hennessy and Patterson, “Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach“, 5th Edition. ISBN 978-0123838728. One copy is on reserve fro this course at the library. The library also has the eBook version available (Bucknell login required).
- Patterson and Hennessy, “Computer Organization and Design: The Hardware/Software Interface“, 5th Edition. ISBN 978-0124077263. This is the required text for CSCI 206. One copy is on reserve for this course at the library. The eBook is not yet available.
- Samir Palnitkar, “Verilog HDL“, 2nd Edition. ISBN 978-0132599702. One copy is on reserve for this course at the library. No eBook available.
Attendance and Participation
An important part of the class is your active participation in lecture sections. If people do not show up to lecture, or do other work (or sleep) while in lecture, it degrades the quality of the class for everyone. Therefore, all students are expected to attend and actively participate in all lectures. If you have to miss a class please contact the instructor at least 24 hours prior to the start of that class. You will be responsible for making up any/all missed work.
In Class Activities
Most classes will include some sort of activity. Many times you will have time to complete the activity in class. If you do not complete an activity in class, it is your homework and is due by the beginning of next class. Activities will occasionally be collected and graded as part of your Quizzes, Activities, Participation grade. It is your responsibility to complete the activities and bring them to the next class.
Lab & Project Work
This course has 4 lab projects that complement the lecture material. The first two (project 0 and project 1) are individual assignments. The last two (project 2 and project 3) are group assignments. Groups will be determined at the completion of project 1. Projects are due at the beginning of the following lab session (see the Schedule).
The projects are worth:
| Project 0 | 5% |
| Project 1 | 15% |
| Project 2 | 40% |
| Project 3 | 40% |
Late Work
Late work is not accepted unless you receive permission from the instructor >24 hours before it is due.
Grading
Your instructor will make every effort to promptly return all graded work to you (usually by the next scheduled class). Projects and larger assignments will take longer (typically 1 week). All grades will be published on Moodle. If you think you find a grading error, you may request a regrade. Regrade requests must be received no later than 72 hours after the assignment/exam is returned. It is possible for the new grade to be lower than the original grade. In all cases, the most recent grade is used (not the highest grade). If you would like to discuss your grade at any time, please contact me for a meeting.
The grade distribution of the components of the course is shown below. Students must pass all bold items marked with a * to pass the course (separately).
| Quizzes, Activities, Participation* | 20% |
| Exam 1 | 10% |
| Exam 2 | 10% |
| Final Exam* | 10% |
| Lab & Projects* | 50% |
The standard grading scale (below) is used to assign letter grades.
| Score | Grade |
|---|---|
| 93 | A |
| 90-92 | A- |
| 87-89 | B+ |
| 83-86 | B |
| 80-82 | B- |
| 77-79 | C+ |
| 73-76 | C |
| 70-72 | C- |
| 60-69 | D |
| <60 | F |
Bucknell University Honor Code
As a student and citizen of the Bucknell University community:
- I will not lie, cheat, or steal in my academic endeavors.
- I will forthrightly oppose each and every instance of academic dishonesty.
- I will let my conscience guide my decision to communicate directly with any person or persons I believe to have been dishonest in academic work.
- I will let my conscience guide my decision on reporting breaches of academic integrity to the appropriate faculty or deans.
Expectations for Academic Engagement
Courses at Bucknell that receive one unit of academic credit have a minimum expectation of 12 hours per week of student academic engagement. Student academic engagement includes both the hours of direct faculty instruction (or its equivalent) and the hours spent on out-of-class student work.
Source: Bucknell University Academic Policies and Requirements
Access Statement
Any student who may need an accommodation based on the impact of a disability should contact Heather Fowler, Director of the Office of Accessibility Resources at 570-577-1188 or hf007@bucknell.edu who will help coordinate reasonable accommodations for those students with documented disabilities.
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