CMSC 240: Principles of Computer Organization

Semester & Year: Fall 2008

Schedule: Lecture: T/Th 1:00-2:30 in KINSC E309; Lab F 2:30-4:00

Text: Digital Design and Computer Architecture, by David Harris and Sarah Harris
Recommended (or an acceptable alternate text): Computer Engineering: Hardware Design, by M. Morris Mano.

Requirements:

Midterm examination(s) covering the first half of the course:(1) combinational circuits; and (2) sequential circuits.
Final examination covering just the concepts from the last half of the course: computer architecture and organization.
Lab exercises
Written homework or "mini-homework"
Class participation

Collaboration: You are encouraged to discuss the lecture material and the labs and problems with other students, subject to the following restriction: the only "product" of your discussion should be your memory of it - you may not write up solutions together, or exchange written work or computer files.
Collaboration is not allowed on exams.

Prerequisites: CMSC 206. Math/CS 231 (Discrete Mathematics) is also highly recommended.

Description: A lecture/laboratory course studying the hierarchical design of modern digital computers: combinatorial and sequential logic design, memory and processor organization, instruction sets, assembly language, elements of operating systems, and advanced topics as time permits (such as parallel processing)

Lab Assignments:

Lab 0 (or Lab 0 in PDF): Introduction to tkgate and Thinking About Circuits (also the "attached pages" on lab 0a and lab 0b
Lab 1 (or Lab 1 in PDF): Boolean Logic and Combinational Circuits
Lab 2 (or Lab 2 in PDF): Modular Combinational Circuits
Lab 3 (or Lab 3 in PDF): Arithmetic
Lab 4 (or Lab 4 in PDF): Latches and Flip-Flops
Lab 5 (or Lab 5 in PDF): High-Level Sequential Circuits and Memory Systems
Lab 6 (or Lab 6 in PDF): Microprocessors and Arithmetic (instruction memory, registers, partial ALSU, partial instruction decoding for the HERA microprocessor)
Lab 7 (or Lab 7 in PDF): Memory: Obtaining Instructions and Data (read/write data memory, decoding and execution of memory operations for the HERA microprocessor)

A syllabus is available in html and PDF formats.

Page maintained by John Dougherty, David Wonnacott, and Rachel Heaton.
Computer Science Department, Haverford College.