At MIT, at least, everybody in EECS (all one department) has to take 6.004 where you build a simple computer from the transistors up which at least gives you a

At MIT, at least, everybody in EECS (all one department) has to take 6.004 where you build a simple computer from the transistors up which at least gives you a framework for thinking about this stuff. The simple processor doesn't have caches, of course, so that's a big whole in terms of things you have to understand for optimization, but it's the basics at least. EDIT: Link to course in OpenCourseware if you want to virtually take it: https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/6-004-computation-structures-spring-2017/ https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/6-004-computation-structures-spr...