The teaching is organized as follows:

Learning outcomes

This course presents the theoretical and practical knowledge to implement an algorithm into a digital architecture. Some design alternatives are presented ranging from a pure software, running on a general purpose computer, to an ad-hoc hardware implementation. This design knowledge is fundamental for understanding in depth all mechanisms on the base of any information computing system and all steps of a compilation chain transforming an high-level programming language into machine-level code.

Program

Fundamentals: information coding, Boolean functions, arithmetic.

Digital devices design: combinational circuits, sequential circuits, controller-datapath circuits, programmable units.

Computer architecture: basic principles, instruction set, elaboration unit, memory hierarchy, I/O organization, actual architectures, parallel architectures.

Practical exercises: automatic design of a programmable system, assembly programming of the Intel 80X86 architecture.

Bibliography

Examination Methods

Theory comprehension is checked through a written examination, eventually divided in parts that will be checked during each semester.
Practical skills are evaluated through two designs which can have a maximal impact of 4/30 on the final mark.
Theory without practical marks are preserved through examination sessions at the cost of a reduction.