CS 534 ME

Architectures for Mobile and Edge Computing

Course at a Glance

Instructor Saugata Ghose
Teaching Assistant TA: Dawei Xiong

Course Times Tue/Thu 12:30 PM – 1:45 PM Central

Location Urbana: 3217 Everitt Laboratory
MCS Location Chicago: 4th Floor, Classroom C, 200 S. Wacker Dr.

Announcements / Q&A Ed Discussion

Assignments & Quizzes Gradescope


  • Next Class (Tuesday, February 11):
    Advanced DRAM Design
  • Next Quiz (Quiz 02): out February 14, due February 17
  • Next Project Milestone: initial list of ideas (due February 21)

CS 534 ME is a graduate course at the University of Illinois that looks at key enabling technologies and contemporary research problems in mobile and edge computing hardware. In the course, we will study the design of several key hardware components in modern mobile and edge devices, such as GPUs, memory and storage, on-chip networks, and ML accelerators, and will examine how to optimize conventional CPU components to be ultra-energy-efficient. Students will design and complete a semester-long research project, in addition to paper readings and quizzes.

Prerequisite: CS 433, ECE 411, or equivalent

Office Hours

  • Mondays, 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM, 0224 Siebel Center for Comp Sci
  • Tuesdays, 3:15 PM – 3:45 PM, 4120 Siebel Center for Comp Sci
  • Thursdays, 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM, 4120 Siebel Center for Comp Sci

Course Description

Mobile computing platforms (e.g., smartphones, tablets, wearables, processors in autonomous vehicles) have enabled a revolutionary change in society over the last two decades. Much of this success is a result of a fundamental shift in architectural design, with new architectures focusing on lowering energy consumption, improving the handling of data, and specializing for target platforms. These architectures are continuing to transform, as the relationship between data centers, networks, and mobile platforms changes, and as applications continue to deal with increasing amounts of data. This course will cover key enabling technologies and current research challenges for mobile computer architectures. Topics include smartphone architectures and hardware components, memory and storage systems for mobile platforms, system-on-chip integration, emerging applications, and edge computing platforms. The course will be taught using a combination of lectures and paper readings, and students will be expected to present research papers and complete a substantial final project.