AY 21/22 - Digital System Architectures

This page is about the course named Architetture dei Sistemi Digitali (141IN), for bachelor program IN05. Namely, it is for the 3 CFUs part of that course that I will teach in AY 2021/2022.

Program, goals, requirements # ↰

Detailed program # ↰

In brief:

  • practical importance of access to memory in system performance
  • brief overview of memory technologies
  • cache
    • direct mapping cache
    • measuring performance: hit and miss rate, miss penalty
    • management of writing
    • associative cache
  • virtual memory
    • address translation
    • page fault

For the full course, the program is available here, in Italian, or here, in English.

Goal of the course # ↰

For the 3 CFUs part.

Knowledge and understanding # ↰

  • Know how the memory can be organized in layers.
  • Know the basic of caches.
  • Know the basic of virtual memory.

Applying knowledge and understanding # ↰

  • Designing and applying methods for measuring abstract caches and virtual memories.

Making judgements # ↰

  • Decide if a program can be written in order to benefit from memory orgaization.

Communication skills # ↰

  • Using the proper language for referring to memory organization.

Learning skills # ↰

  • Learn, from technical documentation, more advanced memory organization schemes.

Requirements # ↰

Basics of computer architectures (learned in the preceeding 6 CFUs part).

Method, language, material # ↰

Language of teaching # ↰

Italian

Teaching method # ↰

Frontal lessons with blackboard and slide projection; simple exercises, under teacher’s supervision, concerning the abstract design of simple memory organization schemes.

Course material # ↰

The course material (teacher’s slides) is served directly from here. The slides might be updated during the course.

The lectures will be recorded and made available on Teams.

Lectures timetable and course calendar # ↰

The course will start on 3/5/2022.

The lectures will be:

  • on Tuesday, from 11.00 to 12.30, in room 2A, building D
  • on Wednesday, from 11.00 to 12.30, in room 2A-Morin, 2nd floor, building H2bis
  • on Thursday, from 11.00 to 12.30, in room 3A, building D
  • on Friday, from 11.00 to 12.30, in room 3A, building D

The lectures will be done in person and possibly cast online (upon reasonably argumented request), on the Microsoft Teams team associated with the course. The lectures will be recorded and made available on Teams. For accessing the Teams team, please email me.

End-of-course test (exam) # ↰

The exam works as established by the main lecturer, prof. Alberto Carini.