CMPS631

This course will provide the insight necessary to develop more effective software. The key goal of the course is to provide students a deep background in how digital microprocessors work on a fundamental level. Students will learn how architecture, instructions, and data flow in modern CPUs are implemented in hardware, and how these map to higher level programming languages and the operating system, which are covered in other courses within the curriculum. An emphasis on simulation and design will expose students to the types of problem solving and programming skills required at the hardware level of a computer system. Topics in processor design and architecture, addressing modes, design and management of memory hierarchies, and virtual memory, multiprocessing, multitasking, process communications, principles of pipeline processing, classification of parallel architectures and data flow architectures.