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ECEN 2120 - Computers as Components

Required - 5 credit hours
On-Line Course Materials

Catalog Description: How computers are used in system implementation: capabilities of a central processor, using devices via their interfaces, and managing concurrency. Topics include computer architecture, instruction sets, programming, input/output, interrupts, block transfers, semaphores, shared procedures, multiple processors, memory management.

Prerequisite: CSCI 1300, Introduction to Programming.

Textbook: Harman and Hein, The Motorola MC68000 Microprocessor Family: Assembly Language, Interface Design, and System Design , Prentice Hall, 1995.

Course objectives: To provide the student with:

Lecture Topics:

  1. Course Mechanics
  2. Computer Organization and Assembly Language
    • Basic architecture components
    • Instruction set design
    • Data representations
    • Procedure invocation
    • Modularity and program structure
  3. Devices and Interfaces
    • Serial input/output
    • Interrupts
    • Interrupt-driven input/output
    • Block transfers
    • Conversion between analog and digital information
  4. Managing Concurrency
    • The critical section problem
    • Semaphores
    • Shared procedures
    • Multiple processors
    • Process management
    • Memory management and caching
  5. Review and Examinations
  6. Instructor's Discretion
Laboratory Goals:
To develop student skills in:
Broader educational purpose:
Class Schedule: 3 hours of lecture, 4 hours of lab per week.

Contribution of course to meeting the professional component: Contributes 5 semester hours to criterion 4(b) “one and one-half years of engineering topics, consisting of engineering sciences and engineering design appropriate to the student's field of study.”

Contribution of course to meeting Criterion 8, the program criteria for Electrical, Computer, and Similarly Named Engineering Programs: This course satisfies the criterion, “knowledge of advanced mathematics, typically including ... discrete mathematics.”

Relationship of course to program outcomes:
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Prepared by: ECEN2120 Assessment Team: A. Pleszkun (Chair), D. Connors, R. Dameron, M. Vachharajani, W. Waite, and by Vince Heuring
DATE 3/16/05