Physics

Ottorino FREZZA
Michele Martinelli

A - Knowledge and understanding
OF 1) To know the elements of the computer hardware and software architecture and to understand their interactions.
OF 2) To know the techniques needed to develop optimized code for a given computer architecture.
OF 3) To know the fundamentals of logic design of digital circuits using hardware description languages (VHDL).

B - Application skills
OF 4) To be able to evaluate the execution performance of code on a given computer architecture.
OF 5) To be able to develop scientific code optimized for a given computer architecture.
OF 6) To be able to select the computer architecture best suited for a given application.
OF 7) To be able to implement a circuit through VHDL coding and to simulate its behaviour.
C - Autonomy of judgment
OF 8) To be able to integrate the knowledge acquired in order to apply them for the processing needs in the experimental or theoretical Physics.

D - Communication skills

E - Ability to learn
OF 9) Have the ability to follow up the development in computer architectures.

To be able to evaluate the execution performance of code on a given computer architecture.
To be able to develop scientific code optimized for a given computer architecture.
To be able to select the computer architecture best suited for a given application.
To be able to implement a circuit through VHDL coding and to simulate its behaviour.

No prerequisites required.

Introduction to computers: hardware organization, firmware and software, performance definition and measurement.
Language of computers: high level, assembly and machine languages, examples.
Computer arithmetic: arithmetic and logical operations on integers and floating point numbers.
Fundamentals of logic design: gates, truth tables, boolean logic equations; combinational and sequential circuits, finite-State machines.
Introduction to hardware description languages: the VHDL language.
Processor Architecture: functional units, registers, control unit, microprogramming; processing unit; pipelining, exceptions handling.
Memory hierarchy: cache memory, virtual memory.
Storage and I/O.
Overview of Embedded Systems: architecture, design, real-time constraints, and examples of embedded computing platforms.
Overview of multicore systems, multiprocessors and clusters: parallel processing, classification, examples of many-core computing architectures (GPU) and multiprocessor systems networks.

Patterson D.A. Hennessy J.L: Computer Organization and Design: The Hardware/Software Interface (RISC-V Edition), Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, ISBN: 978-0-12-812275-4
Volnei A. Pedroni: Circuit Design and Simulation with VHDL, MIT Press

mid-term and final exam.

.