AIMS AND CONTENT

LEARNING OUTCOMES

The module aims to provide students with a general understanding of the fundamental principles underlying the organization and structure of computers, with reference to languages (assembly and machine), number representation and arithmetic, as well as combinational and sequential circuits.

AIMS AND LEARNING OUTCOMES

The student will acquire the necessary skills to understand how information is stored in the computer and how high-level programs are translated into the computer's own language. 

The choice of reference architecture is a key aspect. The RISC-V architecture was chosen because it offers a simple, elegant, modern, open source model that is also of growing interest in the non-academic sphere. 

In particular, you will be able to
    describe the components of the Von Neumann architecture;
    encode and decode numbers with and without sign, integers, fractional, floating point;
    translate simple programs from C to RISC-V assembler;
    recognise and describe the main combinational circuits.

In addition, students will acquire basic learning-to-learn, personal and social skills through group teaching, cases/problems.

PREREQUISITES

No specific prerequisites are required.

TEACHING METHODS

Lectures, classroom exercises, ongoing assignment with delivery and evaluation.
Instant polling will be used for self-assessment and didactics for groups and cases/problems.

SYLLABUS/CONTENT

• Introduction: from high-level language to hardware
• The components of a computer: the von Neumann architecture
• Information representation
  • Bit, byte, single and double word
  • Representation of integers with and without sign in bases other than decimal
  • Representation of non-numeric information (e.g., characters and images)
  • Binary arithmetic of computers and floating-point numbers according to the IEEE 754 standard
• RISC-V ISA
  • The main instructions
  • Operands and addresses
  • Translation and execution of a program (assembler, linker, loader)
• Combinational circuits
  • Logic gates, truth table, and Boolean expressions
  • Arithmetic logic unit
  • Clock

RECOMMENDED READING/BIBLIOGRAPHY

David A Patterson John L Hennessy
Struttura e progetto dei calcolatori Progettare con RISC-V
Seconda edizione italiana
ISBN: 9788808199669

TEACHERS AND EXAM BOARD

LESSONS

LESSONS START

According to the calendar approved by the Degree Program Board: https://corsi.unige.it/en/corsi/11896/studenti-orario 

Class schedule

The timetable for this course is available here: Portale EasyAcademy

EXAMS

EXAM DESCRIPTION

Guidelines for students with certified Specific Learning Disorders, disabilities, or other special educational needs are available at  https://corsi.unige.it/en/corsi/11896/studenti-disabilita-dsa.

FURTHER INFORMATION

For further information, please refer to the course’s AulaWeb module or contact the instructor.