The course presents the architecture of a basic computer system in all its components and features. It also provides highlights of the techniques for elementary hardware design as well as of assembly programming.

This course is a natural bridge between the first-year course “Computer Science” and the following courses on computer engineering, including “Operating Systems” and “Computer Networks”. Its role is therefore to smoothly and naturally complete the basic knowledge of a computing system acquired during the course “Computer Science” and, at the same time, to gently stimulate the Student to target at more complex issues such as the low level programming and a deeper understanding of the hardware and software interactions of the different components in a computer. By attending this course the Student is expected to increase her/his overview and knowledge of computer based systems, to become more aware of the issues related to the design and management of a computer, and to have one more opportunity to nurture the curiosity qualities that are at the basis of a future Computer Engineer. An important contribution to successfully meet the above expectations comes from the laboratory lectures, where the Students are provided with the possibility of studying and practically approach how to use physical hardware computer platforms to solve real problems.

A deep and well-assessed knowledge and experience of the topics covered during the first-year course “Computer Science” is definitely highly recommended.

• Basics, examples and exercises of simple combinational and sequential circuit design and related issues, such as testing of the correct behavior, memory/area/speed tradeoff, energy consumption, delay and critical path; • The components of a microprocessor-based system and their interactions: CPU, cache memory, main memory, secondary memory, peripherals, Input/Output devices and related addressing and communication issues, buses and addressing modes; • Some “milestones” of Computer Engineering: virtualization, parallelization of operations, operating systems, reduced instruction set computers, configurable devices. • An introduction to the Assembly language.

• Class lectures: about 62% of the course duration; • Class exercise time: about 20% of the course duration; • Assisted laboratories: about 18% of the course duration. Students are highly invited to interact with Lecturers, both at lecture and exercise times. In addition, Students are highly recommended to interact also by using the resources made available through the web pages of the Course, such as the Forum tools.

• Any general purpose textbook covering the topics of the course; • Optional additional material provided by the Lecturers. Additional reading (among all): • V.C. Hamacher et al., Computer Organization, McGraw-Hill, 2005 • M. Morris Mano, C. R. Kime, Logic and Computer Design Fundamentals, 4th edition, Pearson Prentice-Hall, 2008

Modalità di esame: Prova scritta (in aula); Prova orale obbligatoria;

Exam: Written test; Compulsory oral exam;

... The written exam lasts about 45 minutes. The written exam (accounting up to 24 points) is composed of closed-ended and open-ended questions on the whole program of the course. An oral exam (accounting up to 9 more points) follows the written exam. The oral and the written parts cover the whole program of the course. In order to have access to the oral exam, it is necessary a minimum score of 12 points for the written part. Otherwise a rejection will be recorded. If the result of the written part is larger than or equal to 18, then the student can request the registration of the final grade of the exam. In all other cases, the student will (can) have an oral exam, consisting of at most three additional questions adding up to 9 more points. The three questions will span the full program and can also involve the discussion of the laboratory exercises. Failure to satisfactorily responding a question, will imply a negative score for that question and the immediate termination of the oral exam. If less than 18 points are obtained, a rejection will be registered. Professor(s) has (have) the right to ask at any time oral questions to get a better and more complete picture of the student's preparation. The final grade will be determined by adding up all the points collected by the student and rounding the numerical result. Laude will be granted to all students whose number of points exceeds or is equal to 31.5. Overall, the exam is targeted at evaluating the students both about their knowledge of basic computing systems architectures and their design. Several problems proposed as previous written parts will be made available to the students through the web page of the course.

Gli studenti e le studentesse con disabilità o con Disturbi Specifici di Apprendimento (DSA), oltre alla segnalazione tramite procedura informatizzata, sono invitati a comunicare anche direttamente al/la docente titolare dell'insegnamento, con un preavviso non inferiore ad una settimana dall'avvio della sessione d'esame, gli strumenti compensativi concordati con l'Unità Special Needs, al fine di permettere al/la docente la declinazione più idonea in riferimento alla specifica tipologia di esame.