CSE Building University of Washington Computer Science & Engineering
 CSE 548: Computer Architecture - Winter 2010
  CSE Home   About Us    Search    Contact Info 

Administration
 Schedule
Classwork
 Homework
 Project
E-mail list
 Subscribe
 Archive
    Announcements:

Turn in assignments here

Homework #3 is posted here and is due March 10th.

New project resources for you to use in your projects are appearing on the projects page.
(Benchmarks, Simulators, and Tools)!

Paper Critique #3, posted here was Due February 10th.

Homework #2, posted here was due February 17th.

Homework #1, posted here, was due February 3rd.

Paper Critique #2, posted here, was Due January 25th.

Cast

     Name      E-Mail      Office      Office Hours
Instructor: Luis Ceze luisceze@cs CSE 576 TBD
TA: Brandon Lucia blucia0a@cs CSE 615 TBD

Lecture Schedule

Lectures:      MW 10:30pm - 11:50pm      CSE 503

Textbook

Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach (4th Edition, Morgan Kaufmann, 2007), by John L. Hennessy, David A. Patterson and Andrea C. Arpaci-Dusseau

Note:This book is very commonly used, and before you rush out to buy it (it can be expensive...) you might consider wandering around the CSE building asking those who may have already taken the course if they'll lend a copy to you.

Assignments and Grading

Reading Assignments

Over the course of the quarter you will be required to read a number of research papers, and some material from the textbook. For some number of these reading assignments (we will determine the number early on in the quarter), you will be required to do a one to two page write-up/review/critique. These write-ups should not be summaries of the content of the paper. Ideally, your review will briefly summarize, but then focus on what is interesting about the work, what could be better about the work, how well evaluated and characterized the work is, and what the implications of the work are (including potential interesting follow-on work). You are expected to read all the assigned papers even though you are not required to write them all up. The readings are one of the most important components of this course. The readings are listed by lecture on the Schedule Page.

Homework Assignments

You will be required to complete 3 homework assignments this quarter. These assignments are yet to be designated, but will likely include some amount of programming, possibly will include some amount of work from the textbook, and could involve working with architecture simulators. These are not meant to be extremely time-consuming gradables, but rather interesting exercises to familiarize you with some aspect of modern computer architecture by experience. As we figure out what they'll be, the homeworks will appear on the Homework Page.

Final Project

The final project is intended to be completed individually, or in groups of two (or at most three). We expect three people's worth of work from a group of three people, so keep that in mind when forming groups, and dreaming up your project idea. The project should ask and answer (if possible) an interesting question about some aspect of modern computer architecture. The problem or question you address should be somewhat novel with respect to what we cover this quarter. That is to say, just implementing something we read about in class is less interesting than investigating some unexplored phenomenon in a modern architecture, or coming up with a new technique, or optimization that makes use of new (or existing) architecture support. On the Project Page are a few ideas we've come up with; feel free to take one of these as a starting point, or to come up with something on your own that you think is interesting.

Tentative Grade Breakdown

(this could change at the beginning of the quarter)
  • 50% Final Project
    • Proposal
    • Report
    • Presentation
  • 15% Paper Critiques
  • 35% Homework


CSE logo Computer Science & Engineering
University of Washington
Box 352350
Seattle, WA  98195-2350
(206) 543-1695 voice, (206) 543-2969 FAX
[comments to blucia0a]