All reading assignments, except the Background Material listed for the first assignment, are in the text for the course, Computer Organization and Design, Third Edition Revised by D. Patterson and J. Hennessy (Morgan Kaufmann, 2007; ISBN: 978-0-12-370606-5). There is also a Third Edition (not “Revised”, ISBN 1-55860-604-1) published in 2005 that you may use instead of the current one, but both the third editions are quite different from earlier ones, so do not try to use the Second Edition or earlier.
The first printing of the Third Edition of the book has quite a few typographical and other errors (“errata”). Many of these have been corrected in the Third Edition Revised version. The companion web site for the book has an “official” errata list, but I suggest you also use my list of errata for the book. Go through the errata lists and write in all the needed changes in your copy of the book before you start studying.
| Topic | Reading Assignments |
|---|---|
| Review of Assembly Language and Combinational Logic |
CS-343 Background Material 
Textbook:
|
| Sequential Logic | Appendix B, Sections B.7 through B.13 |
| ALU Design and Implementation | Chapter 3, Sections 3.1 through 3.6 |
| First Exam | |
| Processor Performance | Chapter 4. |
| Datapath and Control | Chapter 5. |
| Pipelining | Chapter 6, Sections 6.1 through 6.6. |
| Second Exam | |
| Memory Hierarchy | Chapter 7, Sections 7.1 through 7.5. |
| Storage and I/O | Chapter 8, Sections 8.1, 8.2, and 8.4 through 8.6. |
| Final Exam | |
Notes on the Syllabus and Exams
The above schedule is approximate: exams do not always fall at the precise points indicated, and the reading assignments may be adjusted from semester to semester.
There is an archive of past exams for the course. I will provide you with the user name and password you need to access them.
Exams are not cumulative except in the sense that you need to remember material from earlier in the course in order to understand some of the questions on later exams.
There will be 6-12 homework assignments, each of which will count 2% of your course grade. The remainder of your grade will be based on your exam scores; all exams, including the final, count equally.