Internship, PhD, job proposals…

This course presents the architecture of microprocessor-based systems, from the internals of the processors themselves to the main peripherals, that altogether make a complete computing machine, capable of running operating systems like GNU/Linux, Android, Windows, iOS…

The focus is on the interactions between software and hardware: thanks to lectures, exercises and laboratory sessions students understand what happens between the source code of a software application and its execution on a real hardware computer system, between software concepts and the hardware components that implement them in the end.

Another important aspect is the relationships between performance, safety and security. The course presents various techniques used by computer system designers to improve the performance of their machines, and the impact of these techniques in terms of safety (functional correctness) and security (sensitivity to various types of attacks).

• History of computer systems
• Types of microprocessors, from the simplest to the most powerful
• Representation of data in computer systems
• Instruction set architectures
• Interactions between hardware and software
• Pipelined architectures, memory hierarchy and caches, branch prediction, hardware support for operating systems, peripherals…
• Interactions between performance, safety and security
• Labs on RISC-V architectures: observation of a processor during the execution of software applications, understanding of its interactions with its environment, design of a tiny operating system

Learning outcomes:

• Understand the relationships between software concepts (functionality, performance, parallelism, security…) and the underlying hardware machines (processors, peripherals…).
• Discover the most important techniques used by the processor and/or computer vendors to improve the performance of their products (pipelining, caches, branch prediction…) and the related issues (pipeline hazards, cache coherence, speculative execution…).
• Understand the necessary hardware support for operating systems: processor modes, Memory Management Units (MMU), timers, interrupts, atomic operations…
• Become familiar with the trade-offs between performance, cost, and complexity in computer systems.

Teaching and learning methods: lectures, exercises, laboratory sessions, homework.

Course policies: attendance to the lectures and labs is optional but highly recommended; the recommended book is not a real textbook and the provided material does not contain the entirety of what is discussed in the classroom.

Requirements: basic knowledge of software programming (data types, control structures, algorithms…).

A two hours final exam accounts for 100% of the final grade. The exam is closed book, closed notes, except one A4-sized, double sided, cheat sheet. Connected devices (laptops, smart phones, tablets…) are strictly forbidden. Example past exams:

• 2026
• 2025

All labs are distributed and managed using git and GitLab. Recommendations for the lab sessions:

1. If you never used the EURECOM GitLab instance, first visit it and log in using your EURECOM credentials (LDAP). This will activate your GitLab account.
2. Visit the ca project and request access (top right of web page, "More actions" menu).
3. As soon as you will be granted access you will receive a confirmation email. Visit the ca project again, read the home page and follow the instructions.
4. All lab instructions are given for a GNU/Linux environment (Debian, Ubuntu…) If you work on your personal computer under another Operating System you will have to adapt the instructions.

You read one of these books? Or another that is not in the list and should? Please drop me note and give me some feedback.

The most relevant parts of the Computer Organization and Design - RISC-V Edition - The Hardware Software Interface book for this course (do not forget the corresponding exercises at the end of each chapter) are:

• Section 1.3 Below Your Program
• Section 1.4 Under the Covers
• Section 1.6 Performance
• Sections 2.1 to 2.10 of Chapter 2 Instructions: Language of the Computer
• Sections 3.1 and 3.2 of Chapter 3 Arithmetic for Computers
• Sections 4.1 to 4.9 of Chapter 4 The processor
• Sections 5.1 to 5.4, 5.8 and 5.10 of Chapter 5 Large and Fast: Exploiting Memory Hierarchy

Plus, optionally:

• Section Historical Perspective and Further Reading of Chapters 1, 2 and 3
• Section 2.13 A C Sort Example to Put it All Together
• Section 3.5 Floating Point

Warning: the most recent Java archive of the RARS tool is bogus. If you want to install RARS on your personal computer, use the previous version (V1.7): https://github.com/rarsm/rars/releases/download/v1.7/rars-1.7.jar.