Crafting a curriculum in computer architecture

The ACM and IEEE Computer Societies have served the academic community by creating Computing Curricula 2001 (CC2001), to help universities construct undergraduate curricula. CC2001 is now being revised to better reflect trends in computer science. I was asked to update the architecture curriculum. This paper discusses how the architecture curriculum was arrived at and what forces shaped it. Revising the curriculum involved getting feedback from CC2001 users, participating in conference calls, emails, and face-to-face meetings. Those who read the revised CC2001 report will not be aware of these activities and will see only a final result; they will not be aware of decisions taken after much debate as to what should be included in the architecture body of knowledge.