COMP10040

This course provides an introduction and practical overview to computer architecture and organisation. There is a brief historical review of the evolution of computers leading to today's architecture. The digital electronic circuits underlying computer systems are explained with an introduction to the basic concepts of the transistor and integrated circuits. The main emphasis of the course is to present an understanding of the operation of a typical modern computer from the conceptual instruction level down to the electronic implementation of these instructions. The main components of the module are:

1. A review of the historical evolution of modern computer systems and the emergence of the Von Neumann architecture.
2. Data and number representation in digital computer systems.
3. Instruction format and execution.
4. The basics of integrated circuits: the transistor and logic gates.
5. Boolean algebra and logic circuits.
6. Computer architecture.
7. The Memory hierarchy.
8. Cache memory systems.
9. Techniques for improving computing performance: Pipelining and super-scaler processing.
10. Input/Output techniques.
11. The future of computing

Students will be given exercises to complete approximately every 2-3 weeks. These will be a combination of written exercises and elementary digital circuit design using a gate/processor simulator.