The goal of this course is to introduce undergraduate students to key design optimizations in modern processor architectures through a semester-long hands-on design project. By taking this course, students will:

• become conversant with state-of-the-art microarchitectural design mechanisms and optimizations,
• be able to read and evaluate specs of modern architectures, and
• gain experience optimizing a baseline architecture, measure performance improvements, and report findings.

Required Textbook:

Patterson and Hennessy, "Computer Organization and Design: The Hardware/Software Interface", Fifth Edition

Other textbooks and online resources:

• Graduate textbook:Hennessy and Patterson, "Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach", Sixth Edition
• Books from Synthesis Lectures on Computer Architecture

Contact

Instructor:

Ashish Venkat (email: venkat@virginia.edu)
Office Hours: Tu/Th 4:30pm-5pm or by appointment at Rice 312

Teaching Assistant:

TBD (email: TBD@virginia.edu)
Office Hours: TBD

Grading

The grading breakdown for this course is:

• 10%: Class Participation
• 10%: Peer Review
• 10%: Baseline Optimization
• 60%: Semester-Long Design Project (20% for each optimization)
• 10%: Final Report and Presentation

Note-1: There will be no exams or traditional homework assignments, but since CSO1 and CSO2 don't cover quantitative methods for performance measurement (useful in measuring the performance of your proposed designs) in sufficient detail, we might have one potentially ungraded homework assignment involving quantitative methods.

Note-2: We will NOT use an absolute grading scale for this course. Your final letter grades will be assigned based on your overall performance, relative to the class average.

Course Project

The bulk of the course will involve a semester-long project (in C++) on designing microarchitectural optimizations (potentially involving multiple forms of parallelism and speculation) for a baseline general-purpose processor that will be provided at the beginning of the semester.  Students will work on four design optimizations (one baseline optimization and three custom optimization) in pairs, measure the performance improvements on a set of target benchmarks provided, and then present their findings to the class at the end of the semester.  Students can choose from a suggested list of optimizations below (most of which will be covered in in-class lectures) or could come up with their own novel optimizations.

List of Suggested Design Optimizations:

• Branch Prediction
• Superscalar Execution
• Out-Of-Order Execution
• Data Prefetching
• Value Prediction
• Fetch-Directed Instruction Prefetching
• Multithreading
• Data-Parallel (SIMD) Execution

Guidelines and Policies:

• You will work in pairs for the design project and both students will receive the same grade. In addition, each student will be given a chance to evaluate their partner periodically.
• You are expected to implement one baseline optimization (convert a single-cycle processor to a pipelined processor) and at least three custom optimizations, with each optimization providing an incremental improvement in performance.
• Each team is expected to get their design checked off by a TA at scheduled milestone reviews.
• Design projects and associated reports are to be turned in electronically on Gradescope, in advance of the milestone reviews.

Schedule (TBD)

Date	Topic
Jan 14	Introduction, Motivation, and Course Logistics Background Preparation: Brush up concepts covered in CSO1 and CSO2

Honor Code

I trust every student in this course to fully abide by the University's Honor Code and pledge to not commit academic fraud. You are allowed to discuss, collaborate, and brainstorm within your project group. You may use AI resources to implement your optimizations, as long as you're able to clearly explain your implementation during milestone reviews. However, you're not allowed to plagiarize code from another student's project or from the internet. Cheating will be taken seriously and will be reported to the honor committee. All suspected honor violations will receive an failing grade for the course regardless of any action taken by the Honor Committee.

Please let me know if you have any questions regarding the course Honor policy. If you believe you may have committed an Honor Offense, you may wish to file a Conscientious Retraction by calling the Honor Offices at (434) 924-7602. For your retraction to be considered valid, it must, among other things, be filed with the Honor Committee before you are aware that the act in question has come under suspicion by anyone. More information can be found here. Your Honor representatives can be found at this link

Learning Accommodations

Students with disabilities or learning needs
It is my goal to create a learning experience that is as accessible as possible. If you anticipate any issues related to the format, materials, or requirements of this course, please meet with me outside of class so we can explore potential options. Students with disabilities may also wish to work with the Student Disability Access Center to discuss a range of options to removing barriers in this course, including official accommodations. Please visit their website for information on this process and to apply for services online. If you have already been approved for accommodations through SDAC, please send me your accommodation letter and meet with me so we can develop an implementation plan together.

Discrimination and power-based violence
The University of Virginia is dedicated to providing a safe and equitable learning environment for all students. To that end, it is vital that you know two values that I and the University hold as critically important:

1. Power-based personal violence will not be tolerated.
2. Everyone has a responsibility to do their part to maintain a safe community on Grounds.

If you or someone you know has been affected by power-based personal violence, more information can be found on the UVA Sexual Violence website that describes reporting options and resources available.

As your professor and as a person, know that I care about you and your well-being and stand ready to provide support and resources as I can. As a faculty member, I am a responsible employee, which means that I am required by University policy and federal law to report what you tell me to the University's Title IX Coordinator. The Title IX Coordinator's job is to ensure that the reporting student receives the resources and support that they need, while also reviewing the information presented to determine whether further action is necessary to ensure survivor safety and the safety of the University community. If you wish to report something that you have seen, you can do so at the Just Report It portal. The worst possible situation would be for you or your friend to remain silent when there are so many here willing and able to help.

Religious accommodations
It is the University's long-standing policy and practice to reasonably accommodate students so that they do not experience an adverse academic consequence when sincerely held religious beliefs or observances conflict with academic requirements. Students who wish to request academic accommodation for a religious observance should submit their request in writing directly to me as far in advance as possible. Students who have questions or concerns about academic accommodations for religious observance or religious beliefs may contact the University’s Office for Equal Opportunity and Civil Rights (EOCR) at UVAEOCR@virginia.edu or (434) 924-3200.