To demystify the black-box approach to computing, we will start with an overview of computer architectures from a cluster down to microprocessor design. Topics such as vector registers and cache hierarchy will be discussed. Emerging architectures and accelerators such as GPUs will be introduced. Performance metrics such as FLOPs that are frequently used in the HPC community will be defined. Finally, cloud computing and its advantages and disadvantages will be presented.
Attendees will leave with a basic understanding of computer architecture and why awareness of it is important when writing code for high-performance computing.
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Lecture