Postgraduate Course: HPC Architectures (PGPH11080)
Course Outline
| School | School of Physics and Astronomy |
College | College of Science and Engineering |
| Course type | Standard |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Credits | 10 |
| Home subject area | Postgraduate (School of Physics and Astronomy) |
Other subject area | None |
| Course website |
None |
Taught in Gaelic? | No |
| Course description | After taking this course students should have a good understanding (form the practioner&Šs perspective) of the way HPC systems are designed and how this affects both the way they are programmed and the performance of applications.
The course will cover the the following topics:
&ˇ Basic components of HPC systems: processors, memory, interconnect, storage.
&ˇ Classification of architectures: SIMD/MIMD, shared vs distributed memory, clusters
&ˇ System software: OSs, processes, threads, scheduling, batch systems.
&ˇ Brief history of HPC systems, including Moore &Šs Law.
&ˇ CPU design: functional units, instructions sets, pipelining, branch predicition, ILP (superscalar, VLIW, SIMD instructions), multithreading.
&ˇ Caches: operation and design features
&ˇ Memory: operation and design features, including cache coherency and consistency
&ˇ Multicore CPUs, including cache and memory hierarchy
&ˇ GPGPUs: operation and design features
&ˇ Interconnects: operation and design features
&ˇ Current HPC architectures
Lectures will be followed by tutored practical sessions illustrating the key concepts.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
| Additional Costs | None |
Course Delivery Information
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| Delivery period: 2012/13 Semester 1, Not available to visiting students (SS1)
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WebCT enabled: Yes |
Quota: None |
| Location |
Activity |
Description |
Weeks |
Monday |
Tuesday |
Wednesday |
Thursday |
Friday |
| King's Buildings | Lecture | | 1-11 | 14:00 - 14:50 | | | | | | King's Buildings | Lecture | | 1-11 | | | | 14:00 - 14:50 | | | King's Buildings | Laboratory | | 1-11 | | | | | 11:10 - 12:00 |
| First Class |
First class information not currently available |
| Exam Information |
| Exam Diet |
Paper Name |
Hours:Minutes |
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| Main Exam Diet S1 (December) | | 2:00 | | |
Summary of Intended Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course students should be able to:
&ˇ Understand the key components of HPC architectures
&ˇ Understand the basic principles of operation of these components
&ˇ Appreciate the main design choices and trade-offs in HPC architecture.
&ˇ Understand how the components are put together to form complete systems
&ˇ Understand how HPC system software is used to manage the hardware.
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Assessment Information
| 100% examination consisting of a two hour exam |
Special Arrangements
| None |
Additional Information
| Academic description |
Not entered |
| Syllabus |
Not entered |
| Transferable skills |
Not entered |
| Reading list |
Not entered |
| Study Abroad |
Not entered |
| Study Pattern |
Not entered |
| Keywords | HA |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Judy Hardy
Tel: (0131 6)50 6716
Email: |
Course secretary | Yuhua Lei
Tel: (0131 6) 517067
Email: |
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© Copyright 2012 The University of Edinburgh - 6 March 2012 6:26 am
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