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.

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