Course Information

Computer architecture is a foundation for computer scientists and engineers. CS211 is intended for students who are with basic understandings of computer architecture and interested in pursuing research in computer architecture or related fields. CS211 will help students to observe and explore computer architecture in both macroscopic and microscopic dimensions. The goal of CS211 is to make students better understand how software and hardware cooperate and gain knowledge from the classic and state-of-the-art with regard to technology, applications, and economics that drive continuing changes in the area of computer architecture.

The topics covered by CS211 will include (but are not limited to): instructions and instruction set, memory hierarchy, pipeline, out-of-order execution, speculative execution, caching, memory consistency, multi-threading, vectors, virtual machines, trusted execution environment, etc.


Course Staff

Instructor: Chundong Wang, wangchd <the-at-sign> shanghaitech.edu.cn.

Office Hours: 10:00 - 12:00, every Friday of Fall 2021 (except public holidays), at SIST 1A-504.D.

TA: Chongnan Ye, yechn <the-at-sign> shanghaitech.edu.cn


Course Resources


Course Schedule

Lecture Date   Topic   Notes
L01 Tue 14/09/2021   Introduction and Review I (L01 slides)
L02 Thu 16/09/2021   Introduction and Review II (L02 slides)
L03 Thu 23/09/2021   ISA, Microcode, ROP (L03 slides)   Reverse Polish Notations
L04 Sun 26/09/2021   Pipeline I (L04 slides)  
L05 Tue 28/09/2021   Pipeline II (L05 slides)  
L06 Thu 30/09/2021   Memory Hierachy I (L06 slides)  
L07 Sat 09/10/2021   Memory Hierachy II (L07 slides)  
L08 Tue 12/10/2021   Memory Hierachy III (L08 slides)  
L09 Thu 14/10/2021   NVM & O3 Execution (L09 slides)  
L10 Tue 19/10/2021   O3 Execution & Speculation (L10 slides)  
L11 Thu 21/10/2021   Speculation & VLIW (L11 slides)  
L12 Tue 26/10/2021   Itanium & Multithreading (L12 slides)  
Thu 28/10/2021   Mid-term Exam  
L13 Tue 02/11/2021   SMT & Vector (L13 slides)  
L14 Thu 04/11/2021   Cache Coherence (L14 slides)  
L15 Tue 09/11/2021   Memory Consistency (L15 slides)   A Tutorial on MCM
L16 Thu 11/11/2021   Synchoronization (L16 slides)  
L17 Tue 16/11/2021   Distributed Systems (L17 slides)   Guest Lecture by Dr Jingzhu He
L18 Thu 18/11/2021   TM and TEE (L18 slides)  
L19 Tue 23/11/2021   Virtual Machine (L19 slides)  
L20 Thu 25/11/2021   Security (L20 slides)  
L21 Tue 30/11/2021   Summary (L21 slides)  
L22 Thu 02/12/2021   Final Exam