Postgraduate Course: HPC Architecture (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 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. |
Entry Requirements
| Pre-requisites |
|
Co-requisites |
|
| Prohibited Combinations |
|
Other requirements |
None
|
| Additional Costs |
None |
Course Delivery Information
| Not being delivered |
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 compnents
&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. |
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 |
Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser |
Dr Judy Hardy
Tel: (0131 6)50 6716
Email: j.hardy@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary |
Yuhua Lei
Tel: (0131 6) 517067
Email: yuhua.lei@ed.ac.uk |
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