Course Calendar

Week	Tuesday	Thursday
1	1/20 First day of class L1: Preliminaries HW0	1/22 L2: Multiprocessors, Multicomputers and the Intel IXP Read: Commentary: MPOC: A Chip Multiprocessor for Embedded Systems
2	1/27 L3: IXP 2800 Read: Commentary: The Next Generation of Intel IXP Network Processors	1/29 L4: IXP Tools Tutorial and MSF Intro IXP Tools Tutorial Commentary: From your perspective, describe 3 significant differences between MPOC and the IXP 2800.
3	2/3 L5: ME Assembly and Scratchpad Rings Assignment: Go through the tutorial on your own Commentary: Find (or write) a small piece of C code (it can be absolutely anything, completely trivial if you like) to drop into the tutorial project. Simulate that code, check that it works, and determine it’s run-time and microengine utilization. In your commentary, describe your program, include the source, and describe the performance results you gathered. If you had any strange problems that kept you from simulating, describe those. (Spend no more than 45 minutes in the lab doing this.)	2/5 L6: IXA Portability Framework and Packet Streams Commentary: Choose one of the following (I’ll post this project to the newsgroup) How would you improve on the scratchpad ring put performance? Describe your design, implement it and report results. Implement an analogous set of macros for SRAM rings. Describe the differences and performance and share your implementation in your commentary. How does this compare to a dynamically-linked ring implementation on your desktop machine? Describe your experience in your commentary.
4	2/10 L7: Simple POS-PHY Level 3 receive and transmit Commentary: Download the sample full blown application and project and implement a different process step (currently it counts packets seen). In your commentary, describe your processing step and include your code.	2/12 L8: Project groups and topics Commentary: Complete 2/10 commentary
5	2/17 No class	2/19 L9: Project discussions Commentary: Determine group members Propose project idea Use sentences and paragraphs Target a 5 to 6 week project Break project into 3 key milestones Demonstrate some understanding of the problem
6	2/24 No class	2/26 L10: Project Logistics
7	3/2 Commentary: Ch. 7, “Mapping Tasks to Microengines” from Carlson’s Intel Internet Exchange Architecture and Applications	3/4 L12: Milestone Reports Milestone 1 Due
8	3/9 Spring break No class	3/11 Spring break No class
9	3/16 L13: Performance Optimization and WCET	3/18 L14: Milestone 2 Discussion Milestone 2 Due Palmer visit Friday, 3/19
10	3/23 L15: Hints for Computer System Design Commentary: Lampson's Hints for Computer System Design	3/25 L16: Milestone 3 Discussion Milestone 3 Due
11	3/30 L17: From Now On	4/1 L18: Final group discussions Milestone 4 Due Adilleta visit Friday, 4/2
12	4/6 L19: Complexity and the IXP Commentary: Patterson and Ditzel's The Case for the Reduced Instruction Set Computer	4/8 L20: Beyond ISAs Milestone 5 Due Commentary: Colwell et al.'s Instruction Sets and Beyond: Computers, Complexity and Controversy
13	4/13 L21: Project Presentations Project presentations: DDOS Shield ACL-based Firewall Bloom Filter	4/15 L22: Project Presentations Milestone 6 Due Project presentations: FAM/JackHMMer FPLib TOE
14	4/20 L23: A Basic Data Flow Processor Perspective Commentary: Dennis and Misunas' A Preliminary Architecture for a Basic Data-Flow Processor Team FPLib	4/22 L24: HEP Perspective Commentary: Smith's Architecture and Applications of the HEP Multiprocessor Computer System Team TOE
15	4/27 L25: C.mmp/Hydra Perspective Commentary: Wulf and Harbison's Reflections in a Pool of Processors/An Experience Report on C.mmp/Hydra Team FlowerPower	4/29 Last day of class L26: Cosmic Cube, Semester Summary Perspective Commentary: Seitz's The Cosmic Cube Manoj and Girish
16	5/4 Last day of class Commentary: Kuck and Stokes' The Burroughs Scientific Processor (BSP) Team FAM
Finals week	5/10 We will meet on Monday, May 10, from 1-3pm, in order to discuss the project reports and presentations.