ECE 66600 - Advanced Computer Systems: Parallel Computer Architecture
Course Details
Credits: 3
Areas of Specialization:
- Computer Engineering
Counts as:
Normally Offered:
Each Spring
Campus/Online:
On-campus only
Catalog Description:
This course studies parallel computer architectures including architectures of bus-based symmetric multiprocessors and general-interconnection network based multiprocessor systems. Topics include programming models (with emphasis on shared memory and message passing) partitioning, load balancing, scheduling, synchronization, cache coherence and memory consistency models.
Required Text(s):
- Parallel Computer Architecture, A Hardware/Software Approach , D. Culler, J. Singh and A. Gupta , Morgan Kaufman , 1998 , ISBN No. 1-55860-343-3
Recommended Text(s):
None.
Lecture Outline:
| Weeks | Topic |
|---|---|
| 1 | Introduction to parallel computing, Motivation. |
| 2 | Programming models, Programming for performance |
| 1 | Workload characteristics, Performance Evaluation |
| 3 | Bus-based Symmetric Multiprocessor Design (including snoop-based coherence protocols.) |
| 3 | Scalable Multiprocessor Design (including directory-based coherence protocols.) |
| 2 | Communication issues, Interconnection networks |
| 1 | Hardware/software tradeoffs, Computation/communication tradeoffs |
| 1 | Advanced topics |
| 1 | Project presentation/discussion |
Assessment Method:
none