This calendar reflects the campus schedule when this course was taught at MIT. The lab exercises are currently not included.
| SES # | TOPICS | KEY DATES |
|---|---|---|
| L1 | Unit 1: Basics of information: entropy, encodings, error correction | |
| L2 | Unit 2: The digital abstraction: combinational logic, voltage-based encoding | |
| L3 | Unit 3: CMOS: MOSFETs, gate design; timing | |
| L4 | Unit 4: Combinational logic: canonical forms, synthesis, simplification | |
| L5 | Unit 5: Sequential logic: latches, registers, timing | Lab 1 due |
| L6 | Unit 6: Finite-state machines (FSMs); asynchronous inputs and metastability | |
| L7 | Unit 7: Performance measures: throughput and latency, pipelining | |
| Quiz 1 (L1–L5) | ||
| L8 | Unit 8: Design tradeoffs: power, speed, area, throughput | |
| L9 | Unit 9: von Neumann architectures, Beta instruction set | Lab 2 due |
| L10 | Unit 10: Assmbly language | |
| L11 | Unit 11: Compiling expressions and statements | Lab 3 due |
| L12 | Unit 12: Stacks and procedures | |
| L13 | Unit 13: Beta implementation | |
| Quiz 2 (L6–L12) | ||
| L14 | Unit 14: Multilevel memories: locality, performance, caches | |
| L15 | Unit 14: Cache design issues (continued) | Lab 4 due |
| L16 | Unit 15: Pipelining the Beta: pipeline diagrams, data hazards | |
| L17 | Unit 15: Pipelining the Beta: control hazards, dealing with exceptions (continued) | Lab 5 due |
| L18 | Unit 16: Virtual memory: mapping, protection, contexts | |
| Quiz 3 (L13–L17) | ||
| L19 | Unit 17: Virtual machines: timesharing, OS kernels, supervisor calls | |
| L20 | Unit 18: Devices and interrupts; real-time | Lab 6 due |
| L21 | Unit 19: Communicating processes: semaphores, synchronization, atomicity, deadlock | |
| L22 | Unit 20: System-level communication | Lab 7 due |
| L23 | Unit 21: Parallel processing: performance limits, data- and thread-level parallelism | |
| L24 | Building a Better Beta: tips for the design project | |
| Quiz 4 (L18–L22); design project due in one week after the quiz | ||