| Date | Topics | Reading | Due dates |
|---|---|---|---|
| January 15 (Th) | No class | ||
| January 20 (T) | About the course (Notes) | ||
| January 22 (Th) | Overview/introduction; defining and measuring performance (Notes) | 1 (except 1.7, 1.9) | |
| January 27 (T) | No class | ||
| January 29 (Th) | Overview and performance, continued (Notes) | ||
| February 3 (T) | Machine-level instructions (Notes) | 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4, 2.5, 2.6, 2.7 | |
| February 5 (Th) | Machine-level instructions, continued (Notes) | 2.5, 2.6, 2.7 | Quiz 1; Homework 1: HTML, PDF |
| February 10 (T) | No class | ||
| February 12 (Th) | No class | ||
| February 17 (T) | Support for procedures; addressing (Notes) | 2.8, 2.10 | |
| February 19 (Th) | System calls; more about assembler and SPIM (Notes) | 2.9, A.1, A.2, A.3, A.4, A.5, A.6, A.9, A.10 (introduction), A.11 | |
| February 24 (T) | Assembly language and machine language; source to executable revisited (Notes) | 2.12, 2.13, 2.14, 2.15, 2.19, 2.20, 2.21 | |
| February 26 (Th) | Source to executable, continued; a little about support for parallelism (Notes) | 2.11 (skim) | Quiz 2 |
| March 3 (T) | Numbers and arithmetic (Notes) | 3.1, 3.2, 3.5 | Homework 2: HTML, PDF |
| March 5 (Th) | Review for midterm (Notes) | ||
| March 10 (T) | Holiday | ||
| March 12 (Th) | Holiday | ||
| March 17 (T) | Midterm (review in HTML, PDF) | ||
| March 19 (Th) | Numbers and arithmetic, continued (Notes) | 3.3, 3.4, 3.9, 3.10 | |
| March 26 (T) | No class | ||
| March 28 (Th) | No class | ||
| March 31 (T) | A little about circuit design (Notes) | B.1, B.2, B.3 | |
| April 2 (Th) | A little more about circuit design (Notes) | B.5, B.7, B.8, B.9, B.10, B.13 | |
| April 7 (T) | Designing a processor (Notes) | 4.1, 4.2, 4.3 | |
| April 9 (Th) | Designing a processor, continued (Notes) | 4.4, 4.5 | Quiz 3 |
| April 14 (T) | Designing a processor, continued (Notes) | 4.6, 4.9, 4.14, 4.15 | Homework 3: HTML, PDF |
| April 16 (Th) | No class | ||
| April 21 (T) | Designing a processor, continued (Notes) | Quiz 4 | |
| April 23 (Th) | A little about memory hierarchies (Notes) | (skim) 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, 5.7, 5.16 | |
| April 28 (T) | A little about parallelism (Notes) | (skim) 6.1, 6.2, 6.3, 6.4, 6.5, 6.6, 6.7, 6.13, 6.14 | Quiz 5; Homework 4: HTML, PDF |
| April 30 (Th) | Course wrap-up; discussion of final; evaluations (Notes) | ||
| May 5 (T), 11:59pm | Not a class day | "Not accepted past" date for Homeworks 1 through 4 | |
| May 6 (W), 8:30am | Not a class day; take-home final available for pick-up | ||
| May 7 (Th), 5pm | Not a class day | Take-home final (review in HTML, PDF) | |
| May 7 (Th), 11:59pm | Not a class day | Homework 5: HTML, PDF | |
| May 12 (T), 11:59pm | Not a class day | Extra-credit problems: HTML, PDF |