Mini Hardware Physical

A collection of from-scratch, zero-dependency C implementations of computer hardware and physical-layer concepts. Each module simulates or models real hardware behavior at an educational level — from logic gates to CPU pipelines, GPU SIMD cores, AI accelerators, network hardware, and storage controllers. Modules map to MIT, Stanford, and CMU courses, bridging hardware theory to runnable C code.

Modules

Module	Topics	Key Courses
mini-digital-circuit	Logic gates, combinational/sequential circuits, FSM, RTL basics	MIT 6.004, MIT 6.111
mini-cpu-arch	ISA design, pipelining, superscalar, branch prediction, out-of-order execution	MIT 6.004, MIT 6.175, Stanford EE282
mini-computer-arch	Memory hierarchy, cache design, virtual memory, multicore, coherence protocols	MIT 6.823, MIT 6.5900, CMU 18-447
mini-gpu-arch	SIMD/SIMT, warp scheduling, shader cores, tensor cores, GPU memory model	CMU 15-418, Stanford CS149
mini-ai-accelerator	Systolic arrays, TPU ISA, quantization, sparse acceleration, dataflow	Google TPU ISCA 2017, MIT 6.5930
mini-hardware-security	Side-channel attacks, cache timing, Meltdown/Spectre, secure enclaves, PUFs	MIT 6.5950, UC Berkeley CS261
mini-network-hardware	NIC architecture, MAC/PHY, RDMA, hardware offloading, switch fabrics	Stanford CS144, MIT 6.829
mini-storage-hardware	SSD controller, FTL, wear leveling, garbage collection, NVMe protocol	CMU 18-746, Stanford CS240

Design Philosophy

• Zero external dependencies — pure C (C99/C11), only libc and libm
• Self-contained modules — each directory has its own Makefile, include/, src/, examples/, demos/, tests/
• Hardware simulation in software — cycle-accurate or behavioral models of real hardware components
• Theory-to-code mapping — every module includes docs/ with course-alignment notes
• Practical demos — logic gate simulators, pipeline simulators, cache simulators, TPU systolic arrays, and more

Building

Each module is standalone. Navigate to a module directory and run:

cd mini-cpu-arch
make all    # build everything
make test   # run tests

Requires GCC and GNU Make.

Project Structure

mini-hardware-physical/
├── mini-digital-circuit/       # Digital Logic & Circuit Design
├── mini-cpu-arch/              # CPU Microarchitecture
├── mini-computer-arch/         # Computer Architecture & Memory Systems
├── mini-gpu-arch/              # GPU Architecture & Parallel Processing
├── mini-ai-accelerator/        # AI Accelerators (TPU, NPU)
├── mini-hardware-security/     # Hardware Security & Side-Channel Attacks
├── mini-network-hardware/      # Network Hardware & Offloading
└── mini-storage-hardware/      # Storage Hardware & SSD Controllers

License

MIT