Course Home

Syllabus

Timeline

---

My Home

My Schedule

Contact Information:

Instructor:	Zachary Kurmas	Office:	MAK C-2-316
Phone:	331-8688	Office Hours:	MWF 10-11 (physical)
Home page:	http://www.cis.gvsu.edu/~kurmasz

Course Objectives:

At the completion of the course, students will be able to

• construct simple combinatorial and sequential circuits,
• trace the execution of an instruction in a simple CPU,
• compare and contrast a pipelined CPU design with a single-cycle CPU design,
• explain the benefits of the memory hierarchy,
• explain how a particular cache configuration determines whether a memory access is a hit or a miss,
• write code in assembly language using standard programming constructs.

Instruction Format

This will be a "staggered hybrid" course: The lecture material will be presented as videos that you watch on your own time. (A schedule of topics and links to the videos can be found on the course timeline.) You will be assigned one day per week to meet in person. That time will be used for discussion, clarification, group exercises, and exams. Weekly in-person attendance is required.

Text:

• Digital Design and Computer Architecture (2nd edition) by David Money Harris and Sarah L. Harris. ISBN: 9780123944245

Pre-Requsites

MTH 225, CIS 241, and CIS major/minor standing. In addition, students are expected to be comfortable programming in Java and using git.

Grading:

Points for this class are shown in the table below. Note also the additional conditions that follow.

Point distribution	Grading scale
Category % Midterm Exams 35% Final Exam 20% Projects 20% Labs 15% Homework and Participation 10% Total 100%	Letter grade Minimum percentage A 94% A- 90% B+ 87% B 84% B- 80% C+ 77% C 74% C- 70% D+ 67% D 64%

Additional Conditions:

• You must have a passing average on the tests to pass the class.
• Your final grade may be at most one letter grade higher than your test average.
• I reserve the right to make minor adjustments to the point distribution. In particular, I may make minor adjustments to the weights of each test if we cover more or less material than expected.

Important Dates:

• Drop Day: Friday, 30 October
• Final Exam: Monday, 14 December, 8:00 a.m. or Wednesday, 16 December, 8:00 a.m. or Wednesday, 16 December, 4:00 p.m.

Course Policies:

• Labs are due at the beginning of class on the following Monday.
• Assignments are due at the beginning of class on the due date, unless specified otherwise.
• The penalty for submitting assignments late varies by assignment. It could be as little as one or two points, or as much as no credit for the assignment. However, assignments more than 14 days late may receive a 0 even if "I just forgot to turn it in."
• Unless specified otherwise, all assignments are to be completed individually.
• I do not re-schedule labs, exams, or quizzes except in cases of extreme emergencies. Business trips are not emergencies.
• The deadline to drop with a "W" is Friday, 30 October. Remember, I cannot and will not drop this class for you.
• Attendance is required. I understand that absences are occasionally necessary; however, I reserve the right to lower grades for excessive absences.
• This course is subject to the GVSU policies listed at http://www.gvsu.edu/coursepolicies/.

Special Assistance:

If there is any student in this class who has special needs because of learning, physical or other disability, please contact me and Disability Support Services (DSS) at 616.331.2490. Furthermore, if you have a disability and think you will need assistance evacuating this classroom and/or building in an emergency situation, please make me aware so I can develop a plan to assist you.

---

Updated Wednesday, 2 December 2020, 5:48 PM