When and where

Mon: 11:35 AM for live interactions (doubts/queries through MS teams) and Thu: 2 PM for labs (through labs)
On-demand meetings as per the students' need on Thursdays after labs.


The goal of this course is to make students, understand, analyze, and appreciate the basic principles, design choices, and trade-offs associated in the field of Computer Architecture. 10K feet view on the topics: System stack and abstractions; instruction set; microarchitecture; Intro. to assembly language, modern processors and their front-end and back-end; memory systems; interaction with the OS; introduction to GPUs and TPUs. The mode of instruction will be online and in async. mode (because of COVID-19 pandemic). More details on lecture-1.

If the above paragraph was boring, here is another attempt: the course will be about how computers (a.k.a. your smartphones, laptops, desktops, servers, and data centers) work, why they work the way they work, what can be done to make it better, faster, safer, and secure. The intent of the course is to provide 10K to one feet view on how various components of a computer work as a team.

Text books:
Computer Architecture, A Quantitative Approach, Fifth or Sixth edition, J. L. Hennessy and D. A. Patterson (H and P), Morgan Kaufmann Publishing Co., 2019.
Computer Organization and Design, The Hardware/Software Interface, Fifth edition, D. A. Patterson and J. L. Hennessy (P and H), Morgan Kaufmann Publishing Co., 2013.

Note for MTech. students: MTech students can credit CS305 (no need of CS341) to complete their coursework requirements.