Computer Architecture and Organisation

At the end of this course, students will be able to: 1. explain the organisation of the classical von Neumann machine and its major functional units; 2. construct simple assembly language programme segments; 3. describe how fundamental high-level programming constructs are implemented at the machine-language level; 4. discuss the concept of control points and the generation of control signals using hardwired or microprogrammed implementations; 5. describe how the use of memory hierarchy (cache, virtual memory) is used to reduce the effective memory latency; and 6. explain the concept of interrupts and describe how they are used to implement I/O control and data transfers.

Principles of computer hardware and instruction set architecture. Internal CPU organisation and implementation. Instruction format and types, memory, and I/O instructions. Dataflow, arithmetic, and flow control instructions, addressing modes, stack operations, and interrupts. Data path and control unit design. RTL, microprogramming and hardwired control. The practice of assembly language programming. Memory hierarchy. Cache memory, Virtual memory. Cache performance. Compiler support for cache performance. I/O organisations. Lab work: Practical demonstration of the architecture of a typical computer. Illustration of different types of instructions and how they are executed. Simple Assembly Language programming. Demonstration of interrupts. Programming assignments to practice MS-DOS batch programming, Assembly Process, Debugging, Procedures, Keyboard input, Video Output, File and Disk I/O, and Data Structure. Demonstration of Reduced Instruction Set Computers. Illustration of parallel architectures and interconnection networks.