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The Course of Architecture of electronic computers and design of digital systems allows to understand the basic operation of various types of electronic computers and subsystems that compose it. It also provides students with the fundamental notions on the design methodologies of digital circuits with particular attention to the synthesis of combinational and sequential circuits. |
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Students must know the main topics of:
Algebras, e.g. as presented in:
F.M. Brown:
"Boolean reasoning: the logic of boolean equations,"
Kluwer Academic Publisher, Boston MA (USA), 1990,
(chapter 1, pp. 1-21)
Number systems and codes, e.g. as presented in:
E.J.McCluskey:
"Logic design principles with emphasis on testable semicustom circuits
equations,"
Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, USA, 1986,
(chapter 1, pp. 1-28)
J. P. Hayes:
"Introduction to Digital Logic Design,"
Addison Wesley, Reading, MA (USA), 1994,
(chapter 2, pp. 51-123) |
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The course aims to provide an overview of the architecture of computer systems and the design methodologies. At the end of the course students will have acquired in-depth expertise regarding the operation of a computer its architecture and memory management. At the same time they will have acquired the methodologies for the design of logic circuits of different nature and complexity. |
Digital System Design: Life cycle of a system. Design. Design phases. Cubes. Covers. Introduction to CAE systems. Digital simulation. Automatic synthesis. Introduction to logic circuits. Analysis and synthesis of combinatorial circuits. Manual synthesis at logic level of combinatorial circuits. Automatic synthesis at logic level of combinatorial circuits. Logic synthesis with alternate techniques. Synthesis of combinatorial circuits at RT level (functional blocks). Synthesis of combinatorial circuits at RT level (methodology). Synthesis of combinatorial circuits at RT level (technology mapping). Latch and Flip-Flop. Introduction to FSM. FSM classification. Analysis and Synthesis of simple FSM. Manual Synthesis of simple FSM at logic level. Automatic Synthesis of simple FSM at logic level. Sequential blocks at RT level. Good design guidelines. Synthesis of simple FSM at RT level.
Computer Architecture:
Computers: historical background.
Data paths and Control Unit.
Microprogrammed Control Unit.
Binary multiplier and base CPU architecture.
RTL architecture of a simple CPU.
Introduction to machine code.
Addressing modes.
Memory technologies.
Memory hierarchies and locality principle.
Cache Memory.
X86 architecture.
X86 architecture: memory access.
X86 architecture: instruction set.
X86 architecture: syntax.
X86 architecture: programs.
I/O subsystem: interfaces.
I/O subsystem: interrupts.
System BUS.
RISC and Superscalar processors: motivations.
RISC and Superscalar processors: the pipelines. |
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J. P. Hayes: “Computer Architecture and Organization”, MacGraw Hill, New York, 1998. |
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The available exercises can be used to gain better practical understanding of both Assembly programming and Digital design projects. |
Prof.
Romeo Beccherelli
- Istituto per la Microelettronica e Microsistemi (CNR-IMM) Università Telematica Internazionale Uninettuno (Roma - Italia)
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