This page contains information on the project for the class 646.

Possible topics
The topic for the project can be anything that the students desire.  Since this is a graduate-level class, part of the objective of the class is to prepare you for thinking independently - crucial for research and for a successful career in industry.  Part of the credit for the project will be towards evaluating your initiative and imagination in picking a good project topic.

Possible topics for the project may include those that either:

• propose to collect a set of interesting and detailed statistics about some phenomenon relating to computer architecture.  The statistics collected should lead to some conclusions supported by the numbers.
• propose to extend the MIPS simulator provided to model some architectural feature not currently modelled by it.  Some experiments to evaluate this new feature must be provided.
• propose to write a software tool to help evaluate or design computer architectures.
• propose a new piece of hardware in computer architecture design.

Infrastructure: The project may use any infrastructure the students are aware of, such as processor simulators, memory simulators, compilers and profiling tools.  Students are encouraged to use infrastructure they use as part of their research in the project.  Alternatively, the MIPS-I simulator described in the first simulation assignment may be used.  If you plan to do this, you may want to do that assignment first to get familiar with the software (or in the minimum, look at the software).

Grading
20% of the overall grade of the class is for the project, of which 5% is for the project proposal and the remaining 15% is for the final project submission.

Proposal
Due date:      October 15, 2000  (Sunday!) by midnight.
By this date, each group should submit a project proposal This proposal must be approved by the instructor before the students start the project.  The total length of the proposal should be 4 pages or less (approx.). The proposal should outline the following areas:

• The title of the project
• A short summary of the objectives of the project.  (less than 200 words approx).
• The set of deliverables.  This section should include what the project will deliver at the end of the term.  Example deliverables could be a piece of software, a set of statistics, or the design of a new piece of hardware, or some combination of the above.
• Technical background/ justification for project.  This section should describe in detail the technical background required for understanding the project.  It should justify, in brief, why the project is interesting.
• Infrastructure required. This section should briefly describe the infrastructure required for the project, and how the group members will have access to it.
• Approach.  This section should describe the approach followed.  It should include a description of the planned software modules (if any), a description of what experiments (if any) will be conducted, and a description of proposed hardware (if any).

Final submission
Due date:    Dec 5, 2000 (hardcopy in class).
By this date, each group must submit the deliverables promised in the proposal.  This should include a report on results obtained (4 pages or less, very approx - the actual length will vary based upon what deliverables were promised).  The report must be submitted in hardcopy - the only acceptable method. The report should include:

• a table of contents, including addendums.
• the design of any new modules.
• the approach taken, in detail.
• the suite of statistics collected.
• conclusions obtained.

• complete printouts of all software written.
• example runs of how statistics were collected (if any).
• any other relevant printouts the group members wish to include.