Computer Architecture
59 hours
One Semester or equivalent
Hawthorn
Available to incoming Study Abroad and Exchange students
Overview
This unit of study will provide you with an understanding of computer system design, particularly the relationship between hardware and software and how this influences system performance.
Teaching periods
Location
Start and end dates
Last self-enrolment date
Census date
Last withdraw without fail date
Results released date
Semester 2
Location
Hawthorn
Start and end dates
29-July-2024
27-October-2024
27-October-2024
Last self-enrolment date
11-August-2024
Census date
31-August-2024
Last withdraw without fail date
13-September-2024
Results released date
03-December-2024
Learning outcomes
Students who successfully complete this unit will be able to:
- Appreciate the range of application of computer systems and their differing performance requirements (K3)
- Describe the different components of a computer system and their purpose (K2, K3, K6)
- Appreciate different computer architectures and organizations, and their effect upon operation and performance (K2, K3, S1, S2, S3, A2)
- Discuss and apply principles used in instruction set design including that for RISC architectures (K2, K3, S1, S2, S3, A2)
- Describe the use of parallelism in multiple processor systems and the constraints that affect its effectiveness (K2, K3)
- Determine the role of operating systems and how they interact with, and affect the design of, computer architectures and computer organization (K2, K3)
- Assess the range of memory and storage technologies that are available, their area of application and their performance characteristics (K2, K3, S1, S2)
Teaching methods
Hawthorn
Type | Hours per week | Number of weeks | Total (number of hours) |
---|---|---|---|
Live Online Lecture | 1.00 | 6 weeks | 6 |
On-campus Lecture | 1.00 | 6 weeks | 6 |
Online Lecture | 1.00 | 12 weeks | 12 |
On-campus Lab | 2.00 | 12 weeks | 24 |
On-campus Class | 1.00 | 11 weeks | 11 |
Unspecified Learning Activities (Phasing out) Independent Learning | 7.58 | 12 weeks | 91 |
TOTAL | 150 |
Assessment
Type | Task | Weighting | ULO's |
---|---|---|---|
Assessment | Individual | 40 - 50% | 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 |
Project | Group | 50 - 60% | 2,3,4,5,7 |
Hurdle
As the minimum requirements of assessment to pass a unit and meet all ULOs to a minimum standard, an undergraduate student must have achieved:
(i) An aggregate mark of 50% or more, and(ii) At least 40% in the final Oral Defence. Students who do not successfully achieve hurdle requirement (ii) will receive a maximum of 45% as the total mark for the unit.
Content
- Fundamentals of computer design
- Instruction set principles
- CISC and RISC architectures
- Pipelining concepts
- Cache properties and performance
- Memory-hierarchy design
- Multiprocessors and thread-level parallelism
- Storage systems
Study resources
Reading materials
A list of reading materials and/or required textbooks will be available in the Unit Outline on Canvas.