This tutorial course considers topics in the low-level design of modern architectures. Course meetings will review problems of designing effective architectures including instruction-level parallelism, branch-prediction, caching strategies, and advanced ALU design. Readings will be taken from recent technical literature. Labs will focus on the development of custom CMOS circuits to implement projects from gates to bit-sliced ALU's. Final group projects will develop custom logic demonstrating concepts learned in course meetings. Format: tutorial. Evaluation will be based on microprocessor design projects, participation in tutorial meetings, and examinations. Preference given to current or expected Computer Science majors.