Knowledge and understanding: knowledge of the structure, the technologies, and the functioning of digital system architectures based on processors, and of their programming in C and assembly. Applying knowledge and understanding: providing the necessary knowledge to understand the modern architectures of processor based digital architectures and to program processors in C and assembly. Making judgments: to develop the ability to independently study, understand and critically evaluate the problems and their solutions in digital system architectures and their programming. Communication skills: to develop the ability to communicate information, ideas, problems and solutions in the field of digital system architectures and their programming. Learning skills: to develop the necessary competence for studying novel digital system architectures and novel programming systems.

Computer science fundamentals

The course is offered in two versions: 6 ects (only the 1st part) and 9 ects (it includes also the 2nd part). First part (Digital system architectures – prof. Carini, 6 cfu): ------------------------------------------------------------- Computer abstractions and technology; instructions: language of the computer; arithmetic for computers; the processor; basic C programming elements. Second part (the memory, prof. Trevisan, 3 cfu): ------------------------------------------------------------- practical importance of access to memory in system performance; brief overview of memory technologies; input/output mechanisms; cache (direct mapping cache, measuring performance, management of writing, associative cache); virtual memory (address translation, page fault).

Hennessy. Computer organization and design ARM edition: the hardware software interface. Morgan Kaufmann, 2016. Ritchie, Dennis M. and Brian W. Kernighan, The C programming language. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1988.

Theory: classroom teaching with slides; exercise and lab activities: in classroom and in labs equipped with PCs. The teaching material, including exercises and problems, is made available to students through the Moodle or MS Teams platforms.

Clarifications about the course topics are possible also outside lectures by contacting the professors personally or by email.

The exam aims at verifying that the student is confident with processor based digital architectures and their programming. 6 CFU part: The exam consists of a written exam, composed by programming exercises and open questions, and an oral exam. 3 CFU part: The exam consists of a written exam with exercises and open question about theory. Each of the two parts receives a grade out of thirty, obtained by the weighted average of the various questions and exercises, according to their importance. The final grade for the 9 CFU exam is given by the weighted average based on the credits of the grades of the two parts.

This course explores topics closely related to one or more goals of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (SDGs)