Professor Christos Kozyrakis
Basic
Information
Lectures: Tue-Thu,
Instructor: Christos Kozyrakis,
304 Gates Hall, christos@ee.stanford.edu, (650) 725-371
office hours: Mon.
TA: Metha Jeeradit, metha@stanford.edu
Support: Chris Lilly
305 Gates Hall, clilly@cs.stanford.edu, (650) 725-3927
Web: http://eeclass.stanford.edu/ee392c
Mailing-list: ee392c-spr0203-all@lists.stanford.edu (need to signup)
Newsgroup: su.class.ee392c
Description
Conventional processors are based on the uniprocessor model and can only exploit instruction-level parallelism. However, diminishing returns from scaling superscalar and VLIW designs, increased design complexity, and the ability to pack hundreds of millions of transistors in one chip suggest that future architectures will be single-chip multiprocessors (CMPs). This class will cover a class of CMPs with coarse-grain reconfiguration abilities that allow them to adapt their on-chip computing and memory resources to the parallelism (data-, task-, or instruction-level) available in each application. Such processors are known as polymorphic processors. The goal is to provide performance and power efficiency similar to application-specific designs while maintaining the programmability and flexibility of general-purpose processors.
Throughout the quarter, we will discuss a series of topics related to the architecture, programming model, compilation, and system software for CMP/polymorphic processors. The goal is to identify key research issues and, through the projects, evaluate the potential of promising techniques. This course is recommended for Electrical Engineering and Computer Science graduate students interested in advanced research in the area of computer systems.
Assignments
& Grading
The course is organized as a series of in-class discussions. Students are expected to read before the class meeting the required research papers on the topic of the day. Students are also expected to a) lead one class meeting, b) keep notes in one class meeting, and c) actively participate in every class discussion. Check the corresponding web-page for further information on these assignments.
The project will allow you to investigate an open issue related to CMP/polymorphic processors. You will work on these projects in groups of 2 to 4 students. Each group will submit a detailed project proposal, a final report, and will present its work at the end of the quarter. Students will also review one final report of a group other than their own. The recommend that your project is directly related to one of the topics discussed in the class. Check the corresponding web-page for project proposals and information on the tools available. You can also propose you won research topic, as long as it is related to the issues analyzed in the class.
There will also be homework assignment that will ask you to identify the main trends and computing requirements of an important class of applications.
The course involves no midterm or final.
(Tentative) grade breakdown:
· 40% Project
· 25% Participation in in-class discussion
· 10% Discussion leading
· 10% Note scribing
· 10% Applications study exercise
· 5% Paper review
Miscellaneous
Prerequisites: At least one of EE282, CS243, or CS240 (or equivalent) is strongly recommended. Direct any questions to the instructor.
Textbook: none (see list of papers)