Lecture 1: introduction
  - What is a parallel computer?
  - Why parallel computing?

Lecture 2: architecture classification
  - Flynn's taxonomy: SISD, SIMD, MIMD, MISD
  - Modern classification: data parallelism and function parallelism
  - performance metrics: MIPS, FLOPS
  - peak performance/sustain performance
  - measuring performance, benchmarks

Lecture 3: optimizing single thread performance
  - dependence, true/output/anti dependence
  - loop carried dependence
  - loop optimizations
    * unimodelar transformations
    * loop interchange
    * loop permutation
    * loop reversal
    * loop tiling
    * ...
Lecture 4: SSE
   - What is it?
   - SSE data types
   - SSE operations
   - intrinsic functions
   - write simple SSE programs
   - memory alignment issues with SSE program

Lecture 5: Shared memory architectures
   - UMA, NUMA
   - Cache coherence problem
   - Snooping bus cache coherence protocol, the MSI protocol
   - directory based cache coherence protocol
   - dealing with multiple levels of cache

Lecture 6: Shared memory consistence models
   - shared memroy consistence issue
   - sequential consistency
   - sequential consistency requirement
   - weak ordering
   - relaxed memory models
   - how memory models can affect the behavior or a program

Lectures 7 and 8: pthread
   - write simple pthread programs
   - pthread synchronization mechanisms

Lecture 9: OpenMP
   - write OpenMP programs
   - OpenMP execution and memory models
   - Open directives
   - compile and run OpenMP programs

Lecture 10: Scalable multiprocessors
   - the scalable computer concept
   - low level and high level communication abstractions
   - understand each term in the latency metric

Lecture 11: interaction networks
   - components
   - crossbar, bus/memory, multi-stage networks
   - network topology metrics: diameter, nodal degree, bisection bandwidth
   - the construction of regular topologies: linear array, ring, 
     2D array (mesh), 2D-torus, d-dimensional array/torus, hypercubes, 
     k-ary n-cube, trees, irregular topology, 
   - direct and indirect networks
   - multistage networks, Clos Network, fat-tree