We did similar projects as part of our ECE degree. In general we would start with boolean algebra and logic design, then proceed to computer organization and la

We did similar projects as part of our ECE degree. In general we would start with boolean algebra and logic design, then proceed to computer organization and last to computer architecture (one semester each). Your project would be at the computer organization level. IIRC adding a pipeline would move it to computer architecture level. I understand that reading outside a class may be a bit boring, but these courses gave us a much better understanding of key concepts and issues; from basic boolean operations (i.e how to do them right, how to optimize them), to basic concepts (e.g. 2's complement, base-2 arithmetic, FSMs, flip-flops), to more advanced concepts (e.g complex logical components, datapath, control), to various issues (e.g hazards, async / sync design), etc (i.e all these you probably won't implement as cache, OoO execution, virtual memory). Knowing —to a certain degree— all these made the project easier and much more fun since we could actually have crazy ideas and try to implement them. I don't know the current state of literature, but when I took the courses (12 years ago) the Patterson and Hennessy books (Computer Organization and Design, Computer Architecture) were terrific.