OMSCS: CS 6290 High Performance Computer Architecture (Spring 2025)

CS 6290 was one of those courses where I came out knowing exactly how a processor works under the hood in a way I hadn’t before. It covers the full stack of modern processor design — from the simplest pipelining all the way up to multi-core coherence protocols and memory consistency models. It’s dense, quantitative, and rewards meticulous attention to detail. What The Course Covered The course followed a logical arc that built up in complexity. It started with fundamental metrics — the Iron Law of Performance (execution time = instruction count × CPI × cycle time) and Amdahl’s Law, which became the recurring mental models for evaluating every design tradeoff.