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CornellX: The Computing Technology Inside Your Smartphone

Explore the fundamental computing technology inside smartphones and the advanced techniques that make them run so fast.
10 weeks
6 hours per week
Instructor-paced
Instructor-led on a course schedule
This course is archived
The Computing Technology Inside Your Smartphone

About this course

Skip About this course

We use our smartphones to communicate, to organize our lives, to find information, and to entertain ourselves. All of this is possible because a smartphone contains a powerful computer processor, which is the subject of this course. This computer science course starts by moving step-by-step through the fundamental layers of computing technology, from binary numbers to application software, and then covers advanced performance techniques and the details of actual smartphone processors.

Learn about:

  • Digital logic
  • Computer organization
  • Instruction sets
  • Application Software
  • Advanced performance techniques
  • Actual smartphone processors

This Course also provides students with the technical knowledge and the Jade design tool experience to succeed in the more advanced MITx 6.004 MOOC - Computation Structures course sequence.

At a glance

  • Institution: CornellX
  • Subject: Computer Science
  • Level: Introductory
  • Prerequisites:

    High school mathematics background in algebra and number systems

  • Language: English
  • Video Transcript: English
  • Associated skills:Computer Science, Design Tool, Smartphone Operation

What you'll learn

Skip What you'll learn
  • Describe how a smartphone processor works
  • Explain computer system design from binary information to programming
  • Design a small working computer
  • Describe common techniques used to make computers fast

Syllabus

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Week 1: Introduction and Digital Logic

  • Overview
  • Inside Smartphone
  • Big Ideas
  • Numbers

Week 2: Digital Logic (cont'd)

  • Operations
  • Transistors and Gates

Week 3: Digital Logic (cont'd)

  • Muxes and Decoders
  • Adders

Week 4: Digital Logic (cont'd)

  • Storage
  • Finite State Machines

Week 5: Computer Organization

  • Stored Program Computer
  • LC-3 Instructions
  • LC-3

Week 6: Computer Organization (cont'd)

  • Instructional Set Architecture
  • ISA 2

Week 7: Computer Organization (cont'd)

  • ARM ISA
  • LC-3 Control

Week 8: Programming

  • Programming to Solve Problems
  • Assembly Language
  • Input/Output (I/O)
  • C Programming

Week 9: Performance

  • Pipelining
  • Hazards
  • Instruction Level Parallelism
  • Thread Level Parallelism
  • Data Level Parallelism

Week 10: Performance (cont'd)

  • Caches
  • Multicore
  • Permanent Storage
  • Snapdragon
  • Conclusion

Ways to take this course

Choose your path when you enroll.

Certificate

Free

Price

$49 USD

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Access to course materials

Unlimited

Limited

World-class institutions and universities

edX support

Shareable certificate upon completion

Graded assignments and exams

Read our FAQsin a new tab about frequently asked questions on these tracks.

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