Topics for Computer Organization and Architecture Comprehensive Exam

Posted: September 2006

Instruction Set Architecture

3, 2, 1, and 0 address instructions
Addressing Modes
Comparison of Architectures:
- Stack, Accumulator, memory-memory, register-memory, register-register

RISC versus CISC

Data Path Design

Register Files, Function Unit

Control Unit Design

Hardwired versus Microprogrammed

Pipelining

Data and Control Hazards and their solutions
- Stalling, Data Forwarding, Branch Prediction, Instruction Scheduling, Score Boarding

Architectural Innovations

Superscalar Processors

I/O Transfers

Program Controlled, Interrupt Initiated, DMA Controller, I/O Processors

Memory Hierarchy

Cache, Cache Mapping: Fully Associative, Direct Mapping, and Set Associative, Cache coherency
Virtual memory

References

Computer Architecture by Hennessy & Patterson, 3rd Edition. Morgan-Kauffman, 2003
Logic and Computer Design Fundamentals by Mano & Kime, 2nd Edition updated.
Prentice Hall, 2001