From Nand to Tetris / Part I

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Source: www.coursera.org

7 sequences

Level : Introductory

Language : English

280 points

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Key Information

Free access

Free certificate

35 hours in total

About the content

Build a modern computer system, starting from first principles. The course consists of six weekly hands-on projects that take you from constructing elementary logic gates all the way to building a fully functioning general purpose computer. In the process, you will learn -- in the most direct and intimate way -- how computers work, and how they are designed.

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Syllabus

Week 0: course introduction and overview, the roles of abstraction and implementation in systems design, the road ahead.

Week 1: Introduction to Boolean functions, gate logic, Hardware Description Language (HDL), and hardware simulation. Project: build a set of 15 elementary logic gates that will serve as the building blocks of subsequent chips.

Week 2: Binary numbers, binary addition, the two's complement methods, combinational logic. Project: build a family of adder chips leading up to an Arithmetic Logic Unit (ALU).

Week 3: Flip-flops, clocks, memory systems, sequential logic. Project: build a family of storage units from 1-bit registers to n-bit registers to Random Access Memories (RAM) of arbitrary sizes.

Week 4: Machine language, binary and symbolic instructions, input and output handling, using an assembler. Project: write some low-level assembly programs and run them on a supplied CPU emulator.

Week 5: Computer organization, the Von Neumann architecture, the fetch-execute cycle. Project: build the Hack CPU and computer system, using all the chips that were built in the previous projects.

Week 6: Assembly languages, assemblers, parsing, symbol tables, code generation, the translation process. Project: build an assembler that translates Hack symbolic programs into Hack executable (binary) code.

Instructors

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Shimon Schocken - Computer Science
Noam Nisan - Computer Science and Engineering

Content Designer

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Ranked among the top academic and research institutions worldwide, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem is Israel's leading university and premier research institution. Serving 23,000 students from 70 countries, the Hebrew University produces a third of Israel’s civilian research and is ranked 12th worldwide in biotechnology patent filings and commercial development. The Hebrew University was founded in 1918 by visionaries including Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, Martin Buber and Chaim Weizmann. It is located on three campuses in Jerusalem and a fourth in Rehovot. Visit the website at http://new.huji.ac.il/en.

Platform

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Coursera is a digital company offering massive open online course founded by computer teachers Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller Stanford University, located in Mountain View, California.

Coursera works with top universities and organizations to make some of their courses available online, and offers courses in many subjects, including: physics, engineering, humanities, medicine, biology, social sciences, mathematics, business, computer science, digital marketing, data science, and other subjects.

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5 /5 Average