Computer System Architecture (6.823)
MIT OpenCourseWare's graduate-level study of computer architecture, tracing how hardware and software design choices interact across a machine's evolution. Topics include instruction set design, processor microarchitecture and pipelining, cache and virtual memory organization, protection and sharing, I/O and interrupts, in-order and out-of-order superscalar processors, VLIW machines, vector supercomputers, multithreaded architectures, symmetric multiprocessors, and parallel computers. The course includes lecture notes, problem sets, and exams as published by MIT's Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, letting learners work through the same materials assigned to MIT students. No certificate is offered since OpenCourseWare is a free archive of course materials rather than an instructed class, but the full curriculum is available for self-study.