EEL6763 Parallel Computer Architecture
(PCA)
Spring 2005, 3 Credits, Section #0210
Time and Place: 6th period (12:50-1:40pm) MWF, 239
Larsen Hall.
Required Textbook: D.E. Culler and J.P. Singh, Parallel Computer Architecture: A Hardware/Software Approach, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers Inc., San Francisco, CA, 1999, ISBN 1-55860-343-3. Click here to access on-line errata for the textbook.
Suggested References:
Instructor: Dr. Alan D. George,
Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Director of the High-performance Computing and Simulation
(HCS) Research Laboratory. Office: 327 Larsen Hall, Telephone:
(352)392-5225, Fax: 392-8671, e-mail:
george@hcs.ufl.edu.
Instructor Office Hours: 5th period (11:45-12:35am) MWF, the period immediately before class.
Prerequisites by topic: Topics covered in EEL5764, which include:
fundamentals of computer design; performance and cost; instruction set
principles, examples, and measurements; basic and advanced pipelining;
superscalar and VLIW instruction-level parallelism; memory-hierarchy
design; storage systems; and interconnect technology. More information
for graduate students without the formal prequisites that may be
interested in this course, such as engineering students outside of ECE and
CISE, can be found here.
Goals: To introduce the students to parallel computer models, metrics, architectures, systems, and applications, and for the students to gain a fundamental knowledge and understanding of the field of parallel computer architectures and systems through class reading, lectures, discussions, homework, and a major project.
Topics:
Project: A major research project will be assigned in order to explore fundamental issues in parallel computer architectures, systems, and applications. This project will span most of the semester, and it will provide students the opportunity to more deeply explore fundamental issues in PCA. Students will form teams of one, two, or at most three persons (two is the preferred size) and propose then conduct an experimental or a simulative research project on a topic of PCA of their choosing (subject to approval). Each project will involve elements of both hardware and software in parallel computing, although the balance need not necessarily be 50-50. Facilities and tools to support these projects will be provided as needed and available by unique resources in the professor's research laboratory. The culmination of each project will be a clear and concise technical report suitable for publication discussing project concepts, development, experiments, results, and analyses. The most important outcome of each project will be the research results that are achieved, analyses rendered, and conclusions drawn with demonstrable insight.
Grading Policy: Exam #1 = 25%, Exam #2 = 25%, Project = 40%, Class Participation = 5%, Homework = 5%.
Deadline Policy: All assignments will be given with a strict
deadline, and students are required to submit their assignments on or
before the deadline. In case of extenuating circumstances, students are
advised to contact the professor as soon as practical.
Attendance Policy: Students are expected to attend all class sessions. The instructor reserves the right to administer "pop" quizzes and/or take attendance in class and impose grade penalties for repeated absences or tardiness.
Conduct Policy: We, the members of the University of Florida community, pledge to hold ourselves and our peers to the highest standards of honesty and integrity. All assignments are to be considered an individual effort unless otherwise specified by the instructor.
Academic Honesty: All students admitted to the University of Florida have signed a statement of academic honesty committing themselves to be honest in all academic work and understanding that failure to comply with this commitment will result in disciplinary action. This statement is a reminder to uphold your obligation as a student at the University of Florida and to be honest in all work submitted and exams taken in this class and all others.
From the university regarding accommodations for students with disabilities: "Students requesting classroom accommodation must first register with the Dean of Students Office. The Dean of Students Office will provide documentation to the student who must then provide this documentation to the Instructor when requesting accommodation."
| ASSIGNED | DESCRIPTION | MATERIALS |
| 01/05/05 Wed. | Chapter 1 in Culler & Singh (Introduction) | PowerPoint file |
| 01/14/05 Fri. | Chapter 2 in Culler & Singh (Parallel Programs) | PowerPoint file |
| 01/26/05 Wed. | Special Topic: Message-passing programming with MPI (Raj Subramaniyan) | PowerPoint file |
| 01/28/05 Fri. | Special Topic: Reconfigurable computing and chip-level PCA (Ian Troxel) | PowerPoint file |
| 01/31/05 Mon. | Special Topic: Shared-memory programming with UPC, SHMEM, and OpenMP (Hung-Hsun Su and Adam Leko) | PowerPoint file (UPC and
OpenMP) PowerPoint file (SHMEM) |
| 02/02/05 Wed. | Chapter 3 in Culler & Singh (Programming for Performance) | PowerPoint file |
| 02/07/05 Mon. | Chapter 4 in Culler & Singh (Workload-Driven Evaluation) | PowerPoint file |
| 02/11/04 Fri. | Chapter 5 in Culler & Singh (Shared-Memory Multiprocessors), and Section 6.1 | PowerPoint file |
| 03/07/05 Mon. | Chapter 7 in Culler & Singh (Scalable Multiprocessors) | PowerPoint file |
| 03/09/05 Wed. | Special Topic: Parallel computing and architecture for space-based radar (David Bueno) | PowerPoint file |
| 03/11/05 Fri. | Special Topic: Parallel computing for biomechanical optimization (Byung Il Koh) | PowerPoint file |
| 03/16/05 Wed. | Special Topic: Discrete-event parallel simulation (Eric Grobelny) | PowerPoint file |
| 03/23/05 Wed. | Chapter 8 in Culler & Singh (Directory-Based Cache Coherence) | PowerPoint file |
| 03/30/05 Wed. | Chapter 10 in Culler & Singh (Interconnection Network Design) | PowerPoint file |
| 04/18/05 Mon. | Student Project Presentation: Parallelizing SimpleScalar Through Use of SimPoint-Generated Intervals (Fernando Hernandez and James Poe) | PowerPoint file |
| 04/18/05 Mon. | Student Project Presentation: Case Study of Using MPI on Clusters in Grid Environments (Ming Zhao) | PowerPoint file |
| NAME | ASSIGNED | DUE | DESCRIPTION |
| HW #1 | 01/07/05 Fri. | 01/19/05 Wed. | Carefully survey information in the library and on the web, and then write a 4-6 page paper (1.5-line spacing, 11-point font) in your own words that provides an overview of the history of "supercomputing" (a.k.a. high-performance computing or HPC). Find and cite at least five credible references using the same citation format as that used in our text. Based on the material you gather, draw conclusions about the future of supercomputing. |
| Class Project | 01/19/05 Wed. | 02/09/04 Wed. (proposal); 4/27/05 Wed. (report) | See assignment and general ideas |
| HW #2 | 01/21/05 Fri. | 01/28/05 Fri. | Exercises 1.3, 1.7, 1.8, 1.12, 1.13, 1.16, and 1.17 (note: see Errata) |
| HW #3 | 02/02/05 Wed. | 02/11/05 Fri. | See handout |
| HW #4 | 02/11/05 Fri. | 02/18/05 Fri. | Exercises 3.2, 3.3, 3.12abc, 3.13, 4.6, 4.9, 5.1, 5.2, 5.3 (Errata for 5.3: "memory responds with data 2 cycles after" should be "memory responds with data 2 bus cycles after") |
| Practice problems | 02/21/05 Mon. | N/A | Exercises 5.4, 5.6, 5.11, 5.27, 5.28 (solutions posted in window of LAR331) |
| HW #5 | 03/28/05 Mon. | 04/11/05 Mon. | Exercises 7.1, 7.4, 7.6, 7.7, 8.3, 8.4, 8.7, 8.8, 8.11 |
| DAY AND TIME | TYPE |
| 02/23/05, Wednesday, in class | Exam #1 (sample exam) |
| 04/15/05, Friday, in class | Exam #2 |
Publisher's Web Site for our Text
HCS Research Laboratory
University HPC
Center (under construction)
National Lambda Rail
and Florida Lambda
Rail