EEL6763 Parallel Computer Architecture

ECE and CISE students are generally required to have successfully completed EEL5764 or CDA5155, respectively, before they may enroll in EEL6763. However, exceptions are occasionally made with instructor approval depending upon a student's academic background and willingness to use self-study to fill any holes in that background.

In support of interdisciplinary studies, graduate students outside of ECE and CISE that wish to enroll in EEL6763 Parallel Computer Architecture may do so with their advisor's consent, but first they should be aware of the following. To be successful in this course, you will need to possess good computer skills (using and programming computers) and an understanding of fundamental concepts in computer organization and architecture. These fundamentals can be obtained by self-study during the semester break or very early in the new semester using one of the following three options:

Option #1: Study chapters 1-3 and 5-6 in J.L. Hennessy and D.A. Patterson, Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach, 2nd Edition, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers Inc., San Francisco, CA, 1995, ISBN 1-55860-329.
Option #2: Study chapters 1-2, 5, 7, and Appendix A in J.L. Hennessy and D.A. Patterson, Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach, 3rd Edition, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers Inc., San Francisco, CA, 2002, ISBN 1-55860-596-7.
Option #3: Study chapters 1-8 in D.A. Patterson and J.L. Hennessy, Computer Organization and Design The Hardware/Software Interface, 2nd Edition, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers Inc., San Francisco, CA, 1997, ISBN 1-55860-428-6.

Options 1 and 2 are via graduate textbooks, while Option 3 is via an undergraduate textbook. You only need to pursue ONE of these options, not all of them, as any one of them will provide you with the background you need for the PCA course. Do not be overly concerned -- our experience has been that strong graduate students from other engineering disciplines can build sufficient background via dedicated self-study over a period of several weeks. Good luck.

Professor A. George