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CS-307: Introduction to multiprocessor architecture

Summary

Multiprocessors are a core component in all types of computing infrastructure, from phones to datacenters. This course will build on the prerequisites of processor design and concurrency to introduce the essential technologies required to combine multiple processing elements into a single computer.

Lectures

Instructor

Babak Falsafi

Babak is a Professor in the School of Computer and Communication Sciences and the founding director of the EcoCloud, an industrial/academic consortium at EPFL investigating scalable data-centric technologies. He has made numerous contributions to computer system design and evaluation including a scalable multiprocessor architecture which was prototyped by Sun Microsystems (now Oracle), snoop filters and memory streaming technologies that are incorporated into IBM BlueGene/P and Q and ARM cores, and computer system performance evaluation methodologies that have been in use by AMD, HP and Google PerKit . He has shown that hardware memory consistency models are neither necessary (in the 90's) nor sufficient (a decade later) to achieve high performance in multiprocessor systems. These results eventually led to fence speculation in modern microprocessors. His latest work on workload-optimized server processors laid the foundation for the first generation of Cavium ARM server CPUs, ThunderX. He is a recipient of an NSF CAREER award, IBM Faculty Partnership Awards, and an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship. He is a fellow of IEEE and ACM.

Official source

https://edu.epfl.ch/coursebook/en/introduction-to-multiprocessor-architecture-CS-307

Moodle Page

http://go.epfl.ch/CS-307

Summary

Lectures

Instructor

Babak Falsafi

Official source

https://edu.epfl.ch/coursebook/en/introduction-to-multiprocessor-architecture-CS-307

Moodle Page

http://go.epfl.ch/CS-307

Lectures in this course (38)

Introduction to Multiprocessor Architecture Log in to Mediaspace to watch this video

Introduces the fundamentals of multiprocessor architecture, covering post-Moore servers, sustainable datacenters, parallel programming, and GPU utilization.

Multiprocessors: Overview and Challenges Log in to Mediaspace to watch this video

Covers the evolution and challenges of multiprocessors, emphasizing energy efficiency, parallel programming, cache coherence, and the role of GPUs.

Optimizing Software: Software Optimizations & Work Distribution Log in to Mediaspace to watch this video

Covers software optimization, cache efficiency, parallel scheduling, and work distribution strategies for fast parallel programs.

Optimizing Software: Software Optimizations Log in to Mediaspace to watch this video

Covers software optimizations to improve program performance by maximizing cache hits and optimizing work distribution.

Synchronization: Hardware Implementation Log in to Mediaspace to watch this video

Explores hardware synchronization methods, including locks, barriers, and critical sections in parallel computing.

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