Computer Architecture

Computer Architecture: The science and art of designing, selecting, and interconnecting hardware components and designing the hardware/software interface to create a computing system that meets functional, performance, energy consumption, cost, and other specific goals. — Source: Lecture 2. Fundamental Concepts and ISA - Carnegie Mellon - Computer Architecture 2015 - Onur Mutlu

Traditional definition

The term architecture is used here to describe the attributes of a system as seen by the programmer, i.e., the conceptual structure and functional behavior as distinct from the organization of the dataflow and controls, the logic design, and the physical implementation. — Gene Amdahl, IBM Journal of R&D, April 1964

Resources 📚

• Fall 2021 - Computer Architecture - ETH Zurich from Onur Mutlu
• 18-447 Introduction to Computer Architecture – Spring 2015 from Onur Mutlu
  • Video Playlists - video links with accompanying material (course website)
  • Spring 2015 — Computer Architecture Lectures — Carnegie Mellon (playlist on YouTube; direct link)
• Spring 2020 - Digital Design and Computer Architecture - ETH Zurich from Onur Mutlu
• Computer Architecture - Coursera (Princeton)
• Structured Computer Organization (2013) by Andrew S. Tanenbaum • Todd Austin
• WWW Computer Architecture Page - repository of computer architecture related books

See also 👉 Hardware

Concepts

• Register-transfer level - Wikipedia

Spring 2015 — Computer Architecture Lectures — Carnegie Mellon from Onur Mutlu

• 1. Lecture 1. Introduction and Basics - Carnegie Mellon - Computer Architecture 2015 - Onur Mutlu
  • watched 2025-02-05
• 2. Lecture 2. Fundamental Concepts and ISA - Carnegie Mellon - Computer Architecture 2015 - Onur Mutlu
  • started on 2025-02-05; continue watching from here (or a bit before)
• 3. Lecture 3. ISA Tradeoffs - Carnegie Mellon - Computer Architecture 2015 - Onur Mutlu
• 4. Lecture 4. ISA Tradeoffs & MIPS ISA - Carnegie Mellon - Computer Architecture 2015 - Onur Mutlu
• 5. Review Session 1 - CMU - Computer Architecture 2015 - Onur Mutlu
• 6. Lecture 5. Intro to Microarchitecture - Carnegie Mellon - Computer Architecture 2015 - Onur Mutlu
• 7. Lecture 6. Microarchitecture II - Carnegie Mellon - Computer Architecture 2015 - Onur Mutlu
• 8. Lecture 7. Pipelining - Carnegie Mellon - Computer Architecture 2015 - Onur Mutlu
• 9. Lecture 8. Pipelining II: Data and Control Dependence Handling - CMU - Comp. Arch. 2015 - Onur Mutlu
• 10. Lecture 9. Branch Prediction I - Carnegie Mellon - Comp. Arch. 2015 - Onur Mutlu
• 11. Lecture 10. Branch Prediction II - Carnegie Mellon - Comp. Arch. 2015 - Onur Mutlu
• 12. Review Session 2 - CMU - Computer Architecture 2015 - Onur Mutlu
• 13. Lecture 11. Precise Exceptions, State Maintenance/Recovery - CMU - Comp. Arch. 2015 - Onur Mutlu
• 14. Lecture 12. Out of Order Execution - Carnegie Mellon - Comp. Arch. 2015 - Onur Mutlu
• 15. Lecture 13. Out of Order Execution II and Data Flow - CMU - Comp. Arch. 2015 - Onur Mutlu
• 16. Lecture 14. SIMD (Vector Processors) - Carnegie Mellon - Comp. Arch. 2015 - Onur Mutlu
• 17. Lecture 15. GPUs, VLIW, Execution Models - Carnegie Mellon - Computer Architecture 2015 - Onur Mutlu
• 18. Lecture 16. Static Instruction Scheduling - Carnegie Mellon - Comp. Arch. 2015 - Onur Mutlu
• 19. Lecture 17. Memory Hierarchy and Caches - Carnegie Mellon - Comp. Arch. 2015 - Onur Mutlu
• 20. Lecture 18. Caches - Carnegie Mellon - Comp. Arch. 2015 - Onur Mutlu
• 21. Lecture 19. High Performance Caches - Carnegie Mellon - Comp. Arch. 2015 - Onur Mutlu
• 22. Lecture 20. Virtual Memory - Carnegie Mellon - Comp. Arch. 2015 - Onur Mutlu
• 23. Recitation 3 - Carnegie Mellon - Comp. Arch. 2015 - Onur Mutlu
• 24. Midterm 1 Review - Carnegie Mellon - Comp. Arch. 2015 - Onur Mutlu
• 25. Lecture 21: Main Memory and the DRAM System - Carnegie Mellon - Comp. Arch. 2015 - Onur Mutlu
• 26. Lecture 22: Memory Controllers - Carnegie Mellon - Comp. Arch. 2015 - Onur Mutlu
• 27. Lecture 23: Memory Management - Carnegie Mellon - Comp. Arch. 2015 - Onur Mutlu
• 28. Lecture 24: Simulation & Memory Latency Tolerance - Carnegie Mellon - Comp. Arch. 2015 - Onur Mutlu
• 29. Lecture 25: Prefetching - Carnegie Mellon - Computer Architecture 2015 - Onur Mutlu
• 30. Lecture 26. More Prefetching and Emerging Memory Technologies - CMU - Comp. Arch. 2015 - Onur Mutlu
• 31. Lecture 27. Multiprocessors - Carnegie Mellon - Computer Architecture 2015 - Onur Mutlu
• 32. Lecture 28. Memory Consistency and Cache Coherence - Carnegie Mellon - Comp. Arch. 2015 - Onur Mutlu
• 33. Lecture 29. Cache Coherence - Carnegie Mellon - Computer Architecture 2015 - Onur Mutlu
• 34. Lecture 30. In-memory Processing - Carnegie Mellon - Computer Architecture 2015 - Onur Mutlu
• 35. Lecture 31. Predictable Performance - Carnegie Mellon - Computer Architecture 2015 - Onur Mutlu
• 36. Lecture 32. Heterogeneous Systems - Carnegie Mellon - Computer Architecture 2015 - Onur Mutlu
• 37. Midterm 2 Review - Carnegie Mellon - Comp. Arch. 2015 - Onur Mutlu
• 38. Lecture 33. Interconnection Networks - Carnegie Mellon - Computer Architecture 2015 - Onur Mutlu
• 39. Final Review Session - Carnegie Mellon - Computer Architecture 2015 - Onur Mutlu