Advanced Computer Architecture

Learning Outcomes

Knowledge and Understanding

Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:

• The evolution of modern computer architectures
• The design decisions taken in modern architectures

Subject Specific Practical Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Evaluate by simulation the performance of key architectural features

Transferable and Generic Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Use graduate-level literature to expand your understanding of future architectures

Subject Specific Intellectual and Research Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Evaluate the likely performance of a proposed computer architecture
• Outline the design of a computer system to meet a performance requirement

• Evolution of hardware capabilities: density, speed, power, communications
• Virtual memory, virtualised processors
• The programming interface: instruction sets and memory models, compiler support
• Memory Hierarchies: cache architectures
• Branch prediction
• Cache coherence
• Instruction parallelism: pipeline optimisations, superscalar and out-of-order execution
• Data parallelism: dataflow, vector, SIMD
• Thread parallelism: hyper-threading, latency hiding, multi-core
• GPUs and other accelerators, Intel Phi
• Special-purpose processors: DSPs
• System on-chip
• Architecture performance simulation

Summative

This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.

Referral

This is how we’ll assess you if you don’t meet the criteria to pass this module.

Repeat

An internal repeat is where you take all of your modules again, including any you passed. An external repeat is where you only re-take the modules you failed.