Computer Organisation And Architecture (COA) Practice Exam

About Computer Organisation And Architecture (COA) Practice Exam

The Computer Organization and Architecture (COA) course provides participants with a comprehensive understanding of the fundamental principles, components, and structures of computer systems. Participants will learn about the organization and architecture of computer systems, including CPU, memory, I/O devices, and system buses. The course covers essential concepts such as instruction set architecture, memory hierarchy, pipelining, and parallelism.

Exam Objectives 

• Understand the organization and architecture of computer systems.
• Learn about the components and structures of CPU, memory, and I/O devices.
• Gain knowledge of instruction set architecture and computer arithmetic.
• Learn about memory hierarchy, cache memory, and virtual memory.
• Understand pipeline processing, parallel processing, and performance evaluation.

Skills Required

• Strong understanding of computer fundamentals and basic programming concepts.
• Analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Familiarity with digital logic and computer hardware components.
• Ability to analyze and interpret assembly language programs.
• Knowledge of computer arithmetic and number representation.
• Understanding of memory systems and storage technologies.
• Proficiency in evaluating and optimizing system performance.

Who should take the Exam?

• Computer science students pursuing undergraduate or graduate degrees.
• Professionals working in the field of computer engineering or computer architecture.
• Software developers are interested in understanding the underlying hardware architecture.
• System administrators and IT professionals involved in computer system maintenance and optimization.
• Candidates interested in learning about the organization and architecture of computer systems.

Course Outline

The Computer Organisation And Architecture (COA) Exam covers the following topics -

Module 1- Introduction to Computer Organization and Architecture

• Overview of computer organization and architecture concepts
• Role and importance of COA in computer science and engineering
• Historical development and evolution of computer systems

Module 2 - Digital Logic Fundamentals

• Boolean algebra and logic gates
• Combinational and sequential circuits
• Logic design principles and methodologies

Module 3 - Central Processing Unit (CPU)

• Components and functions of the CPU
• Instruction execution cycle
• CPU organization and control unit design

Module 4 - Instruction Set Architecture (ISA)

• Characteristics and types of instruction sets
• Instruction formats and addressing modes
• Instruction set design principles

Module 5 - Computer Arithmetic

• Binary arithmetic operations
• Addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division in binary
• Floating-point arithmetic and IEEE 754 standard

Module 6 - Memory Systems

• Memory hierarchy and storage technologies
• Cache memory organization and management
• Virtual memory concepts and techniques

Module 7 - Input/Output (I/O) Systems

• I/O devices and interfaces
• I/O operations and control
• DMA (Direct Memory Access) and interrupt handling

Module 8 - System Buses and Interconnection Networks

• Types of system buses (address bus, data bus, control bus)
• Bus organization and protocols
• Interconnection networks and topology

Module 9 - Pipelining and Parallel Processing

• Pipeline processing concepts and stages
• Pipeline hazards and techniques for hazard handling
• Parallel processing architectures and programming models

Module 10 - Performance Evaluation and Optimization

• Metrics for evaluating system performance (latency, throughput, etc.)
• Techniques for optimizing CPU, memory, and I/O performance
• Performance modeling and simulation

Module 11- Instruction-Level Parallelism (ILP)

• Concepts and techniques for exploiting ILP
• Superscalar and VLIW architectures
• Dynamic instruction scheduling and speculation

Module 12 - Memory-Level Parallelism (MLP)

• Techniques for exploiting MLP (memory prefetching, caching, etc.)
• Memory access optimization and cache coherence
• Shared memory and distributed memory architectures