Computer Architecture

Learn about the rules, organization of components, and processes that allow computers to process instructions.

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In this course, you’ll learn about what the main physical components of a computer are, why 0 and 1 are such important numbers within computing, how instruction set architecture (ISA) establishes communication between the hardware and software components of a computer, and more. Starting from understanding how a computer works to learning about data-level parallelism, this course will teach you computer architecture with a combination of lessons, articles, quizzes, problem sets, and projects. At the end of the course, you'll be prompted to create your own CPU simulator in Python.

• Introduction to Computer Architecture: Get started with computer architecture by learning about how a computer works, the binary numbering system, and logic gates.
• Article: Course Syllabus
• Lesson: How Computers Work
• Lesson: Binary Numbering System
• Quiz: Binary Numbering System Quiz
• Lesson: Learn: Logic Gates
• Project: Creating an Adder Circuit
• Instruction Set Architecture: Learn about instruction set architectures and how they fit into the topic of computer architecture.
• Article: Introduction to Instruction Set Architecture
• Lesson: Instruction Set Architecture
• Quiz: Instruction Set Architecture
• Project: Ultra Super Calculation Computer
• Assembly Language: Learn about Assembly languages and their role in computer architectures.
• Lesson: Assembly Language
• Quiz: Assembly Language Quiz
• Article: Assembly Language Problem Set
• Cache: Learn about cache memory by implementing a simulation cache complete with cache reads, writes, replacement policies, and associativity.
• Lesson: Cache
• Quiz: Cache Memory
• Article: Cache Problem Set
• Instruction Parallelism: Learn about the different methods of processing instructions efficiently!
• Article: The Instruction Cycle
• Lesson: Instruction Pipelining
• Article: Hazards of Instruction Pipelining
• Article: Superscalar Architecture
• Quiz: Instruction Parallelism
• Article: Instruction Parallelism Problem Set
• Data-Level Parallelism: Explore different approaches to achieve higher data throughput with data-level parallelism.
• Lesson: Data-Level Parallelism
• Quiz: Data-Level Parallelism
• Article: Data-Level Parallelism Problem Set