ENCE 3240: Computing Systems Hardware Design This course introduces the fundamentals of hardware design of CISC and RISC machines. The general topics to be covered are as follows

• Hardware design of the floating point arithmetic unit.
• Overview of the hardware design of the Pentium, SPARC, and Alpha processors.
• Connecting the interconnection network to the computer (modems, TCP/IP, ATM).
• Multiprocessors, parallel machines, SIMD, and MIMD.
• Application of probability and statistics to system performance and reliability, cache pipelining, performance, and optimization of compilers.
• Laboratory.

This course will require three distinct types of learning from the students:

• Students will be required to read and assimilate the material presented in the textbooks and the material covered in class.
• Laboratory assignments will require creative synthesis of the topics discussed in lecture and will complement the textbook readings and lectures.
• Finally, in written homeworks, quizzes, and on exams, students will be asked to reason about what they have learned. For example, a homework assignment might ask why the Sparc architecture&nsp;contains  a particular feature. This critical evaluation requires that you offer your own understanding of the significance of what you have learned.

Communication The major forms of communication between students and instructor in this course will be office hours, e-mail, chat-room and the class Web page. The mailing list ence3240@cs.du.edu will be for announcements made by the instructor, TA's,  and for any discussion related to the class. The chat-room will be for virtual group office hours with the instructor and student group study sessions to discuss lectures, quizzes, homeworks, and other class related topics. The Web page for the class is http://www.cs.du.edu/~cag/courses/ENGR/ence3240. It will contain most information about the course including a syllabus, all assignments and grades.
 

Office hours (includes both physical and virtual) provide an important opportunity to interact with the instructor and TA in a one-on-one setting. Because the class will be large, it may be difficult to follow up on all questions asked by students in class. Office hours provide an ideal, and often underutilized, setting for in-depth discussion of questions you have about the course material.

If you need to see the instructor or TA and cannot make it to office hours, please request an appointment by e-mail.

The course newsgroups and the class Web page provide a mechanism whereby we can communicate important information to you about homework and assignments outside the class hours. To keep up with current course information, we ask that you check the Web page and newsgroups approximately once per day. If you have a question involving grades or some matter you do not want widely distributed, send it to us by e-mail. Questions about assignments mailed or posted less than 24 hours before the assignment is due will probably not be answered. Keeping this in mind, please start working on the assignments as early as you can. Questions sent by e-mail that are of general interest to the class may be posted to the newsgroup with the response. If you do not want a question posted in this manner, please indicate this prominently in your message.

Grading: Homework Assignments, Quizes, Labs, Exams, and Final Project

In general, you can discuss homework and laboratory assignment problems with each other, but copying is considered cheating. In other words, talk about the problems with each other as much as you like, but each person is responsible for writing and debugging their own program or problem solution.

Any time text is copied verbatim from another source I expect the source to be correctly referenced. Verbatim copying from unaccredited sources is plagiarism. If a case of plagiarism or other form of academic dishonesty is discovered, the guilty parties will receive a 0 score for the assignment and the matter will be referred to the Dean's office.

Your final grade for the course will be determined from the following sources:

• Homeworks -- 10%

Homeworks are designed to assist you in understanding the material presented in the lectures and texts, and to prepare for the exams.
Homeworks will be due at the beginning of class on the day they are due. Because solutions to the assignments will be made available after the homework is due and we may discuss them in class, late homeworks will not be accepted. At all.

• Quizes -- 10%

All quizes will be in-class, closed-book quizes. Makeup quizes will not be given unless there are circumstances clearly beyond your control (accident, illness, etc.). Quizes will primarily cover material from the textbook, homework, and lectures.
Quizes will be given during class (15 minutes). Tentatively, these quizes will be scheduled for Monday's. Please do not count on this date, however, as they are subject to change. The quizes will focus to a primarily on material covered in the previous weeks lectures and homework assignments.

• Laboratory Assignments (LA) -- 15%

There will be approximately 4-6 laboratory assignments(LA). A new LA will be assigned roughly every two to three weeks.

LAs will be graded on a scale of 1-10. Your submitted code must compile and execute to be considered for any points. All laboratory assignments must be submitted electronically.

All laboratory assignments will have a precise due date and time. Late laboratory assignments will be accepted up to 24 hours after the time they are due with a 20% penalty. No submissions will be accepted more than 24 hours after they are due.

• Exams -- 40%

All exams will be in-class, closed-book exams. Makeup exams will not be given unless there are circumstances clearly beyond your control (accident, illness, etc.). Exams will cover material from the textbook, homework, quizes, and lectures.

• Mid-term exam(s) -- 20%

One mid-term will be given during class (1 hour and 50 minutes). Tentatively, this exams is scheduled for February 2nd. Please do not count on this date, however, as they are subject to change. The exam will focus to a greater degree on material covered since the time of the initial class.
• Final Exam -- 20%

1 hour and 50 minutes, Wednesday March 15th, 8:00-9:45pm (Rm 309 Knudson Hall).
• Final Project -- 25%

The final project will consists of a 5 week significant group laboratory assignment to investigate and evaluate a specific new computer architecture, such as UltraSparc, Alpha, PowerPC, Merced, etc. in as quantitative a manner as possible.

The final project will be graded on a scale of 1-100.