Computer Architecture

Overview

This course aims to give an understanding of the mechanisms which implement the programmer's idealised computer. It builds on the introduction to hardware and to simple processors in Moderations, and uses Functional Programming as a tool in simulation and description.

The Computer Architecture course aims to describe a range of architectural designs and to contrast them, highlighting the design decisions they incorporate. The designs are described and analysed at the register-transfer level of abstraction. By the end of the course, the student should understand the major architectural styles and appreciate the compromises that they encapsulate.