Lecturer: Giovanni Danese  

Course name: Calcolatori elettronici (mn)
Course code: 062117
Degree course: Ingegneria Informatica
Disciplinary field of science: ING-INF/05
The course relates to:
University credits: CFU 6
Course website: http://gamma.unipv.it

Specific course objectives

The course mainly aims at presenting the microcomputers and microprocessors architecture, since widely diffused inside several systems and instruments, and at explaining how they work introducing students to the use of their programming assembly language. The course deals with technical and architectural issues, highlighting the relationship between the calculator architecture and modern microelectronics technologies, but also with its low level software organisation. The practice lessons concern the learning of a typical microprocessor assembly language (MIPS), the tracing and the debug of simple source codes, by means of a suitable software development and simulation environment (SPIM).

Useful informations on the course can be achieved at http://gamma.unipv.it/

The suggested book for the preparation of the exam is:
Patterson D.A., Hennessy J.L. Computer Organization and Design: The Hardware/Software Interface, Fourth Edition revised. Morgan Kaufmann Publishers.

Course programme

Computer Architecture
Introduction. Block structure. Hardware, firmware, software. Computer electronic components. Memory unit and its management. Input/output unit and its management. Interrupt. Functional units connections: bus. Information representation and coding.

CPU Architecture
Functional Units, Registers, Control Unit, Microprogramming, Arithmetic Processing Units

Microprocessor and Assembly Language
Microprocessors and systems basd on microprocessors. Addressing Modes. Assembly language instruction set. Interrupt management. Examples of source codes written in MIPS assembly language.

The arithmetic of the processor
Binary numbers representation (with and without sign). Logic and arithmetic elementary operations. The architecture of the Arithmetic Logic Unit.

The software develoment environment
The assembler. The Linker-Loader. The Simulator. Source codes written in MIPS assembly language and debug with the SPIM simulator.

Course entry requirements

The topics faced in Fondamenti di Informatica and Fondamenti di Informatica laboratory should be known by students.

Course structure and teaching

Lectures (hours/year in lecture theatre): 40
Practical class (hours/year in lecture theatre): 10
Practicals / Workshops (hours/year in lecture theatre): 0
Project work (hours/year in lecture theatre): 0

Suggested reading materials

Patterson David A., Hennessy John L.. Struttura e progetto dei calcolatori (con CD-ROM) - l'interfaccia hardware software. Zanichelli. Seconda edizione Zanichelli condotta sulla terza edizione americana.

Patterson D.A., Hennessy J.L. Computer Organization and Design: The Hardware/Software Interface, Third Edition. Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, Inc. 2004.

Testing and exams

Two kinds of exams have been conceived:

Tests during the course:
The following rules are set: 1. the first trail deals with topics faced in the first part of the course that students are requested to explain and analyse in detail; 2. the second trial deals with topics that are faced in the time from the first trial and the end of the lessons; again students are requested to explain and analyse them in detail. The access to this trial is allowed if the first one has been passed. 3. In the final practical trial students are evaluated in terms of capability of using the SPIM software development environment on codes conceived by themselves or proposed by the professor.

Full exams:
In this case, the exam concerns the whole course program. In a first theory trial, students are requested to explain and analyse in detail topics faced during lessons. Then, in a successive a practical trial his/her capability of using the SPIM assembly software development environment is evaluated.