What constitutes 1 AES round?

Question

I'm a little confused as to what constitutes a single AES round. Most sources say it's this:
t0=Te0[s0>>24]^Te1[(s1>>16)&0xff]^Te2[(s2>>8)&0xff]^Te3[s3&0xff]^rk[4]; t1=Te0[s1>>24]^Te1[(s2>>16)&0xff]^Te2[(s3>>8)&0xff]^Te3[s0&0xff]^rk[5]; t2=Te0[s2>>24]^Te1[(s3>>16)&0xff]^Te2[(s0>>8)&0xff]^Te3[s1&0xff]^rk[6]; t3=Te0[s3>>24]^Te1[(s0>>16)&0xff]^Te2[(s1>>8)&0xff]^Te3[s2&0xff]^rk[7];

If so, then (by my testing) it requires 3, not 2, rounds for diffusion. It's also hard to implement an even number of rounds because it seems to require I begin and end on a t0=... round (vs. the alternating s0=... round).

Answer 1

A single full AES round consists of the following:

S-box application
Shift-Rows
Mixcolumns
Add round keys

2 subsequent applications of shift-rows and mixcolumns provides complete diffusion of the state and the initial round key.

What you posted is a software optimized design, which combines the first 3 steps into a table lookup, then adds round key words. Te0[] is the first lookup table, and s0 is the first word of the state. I would suggest looking at how the tables are generated.

It's also hard to implement an even number of rounds

In that design, you simply set s0-s3 to t0-t3, and begin the next round with the correct round subkeys.