Elizabethtown College
CS / ENGR 230
MICROCOMPUTER ARCHITECTURE
Syllabus
(Spring, 2003)

Professor: Dr. Joseph T. Wunderlich
Office: Nicarry 244
Phone: 361-1295
Email: wunderjt@etown.edu
Office Hours: http://users.etown.edu/w/wunderjt/schedules/s03schedule.html

Objectives: This course covers board-level design and analysis of microcomputers. This includes qualitative and quantitative comparisons of microprocessors, memory devices, communication devices, controllers, peripherals, and operating systems.

Course Credit: Three

Prerequisites:

Prerequisite Topics:

Course Text:

Supplemental Readings: Various papers and web-sites

Grading:

      COURSE GRADE:
        (60-62)=D-, (63-67)=D, (68-69)=D+, (70-72)=C-, (73-77)=C, (78-79)=C+, (80-82)=B-, (83-87)=B, (88-89)=B+, (90-92)=A-, (93-100)=A
        (with any fractional part rounded to the nearest integer)

Academic Honesty: Elizabethtown College Pledge of Integrity: "Elizabethtown College is a community engaged in a living and learning experience, the foundation of which is mutual trust and respect. Therefore, we will strive to behave toward one another with respect for the rights of others, and we promise to represent as our work only that which is indeed our own, refraining from all forms of lying, plagiarizing, and cheating."

Course Outline:

  1. Computer Architectures (data flow)
  2. Computer Architectures (physical structure)
  3. Motherboards
  4. Central Processing Units
  5. Performance Analysis
  6. Pipelining
  7. Memory
  8. Providing "Clean" Power
  9. Peripherals and Controllers
  10. Communication Devices
  11. Multiprocessors
  12. Servers
  13. Operating Systems
  14. Ethical Issues in Computing

NOTE: This outline is subject to change during the semester