CS 6501: Special Topics in Computer Architecture: Hardware Accelerators - Past, Present, and Future

Instructor: Kevin Skadron
Class meetings: Tu-Th 11:00-12:15 in OLS 011
Prerequisite: undergraduate computer architecture, covering at least pipelines and caches

This course will cover a set of prior hardware accelerators, such as database architectures; contemporary architectures, such as GPUs, TPUs, and FPGAs; and research proposals for potential new acceleration architectures, such as processing in memory, new machine-learning accelerators, and so on.

Assignments will consist of readings, group presentations of readings for class discussion, participation via comments written before class, scribe duties for the in-class discussion, and a research project.   Group projects are encouraged.  The topic and plan for the project should offer the potential for publication.

The course grade will be based approximately on:

• Presentation or lecture (at least one per student, perhaps more depending on class enrollment): 15-20%
• In-class participation: 10-15%
  (note that participation will include short comments about the paper of the day from each student, to be posted on the class wiki)
• Scribe duties: 10% (summary of discussion, to be posted on class wiki within 24 hrs)
• Final project: 50-60% (this in turn will be divided between a proposal, status report, and final report and presentation)

Honor code terms: All work must correctly attribute sources.  All group work must represent equal effort from all partners--deviations from equal effort must be documented and should be discussed with me first.  Projects must represent original work.

Last updated: 3 Nov. 2022