Book Image

Modern Computer Architecture and Organization

By : Jim Ledin
Book Image

Modern Computer Architecture and Organization

By: Jim Ledin

Overview of this book

Are you a software developer, systems designer, or computer architecture student looking for a methodical introduction to digital device architectures but overwhelmed by their complexity? This book will help you to learn how modern computer systems work, from the lowest level of transistor switching to the macro view of collaborating multiprocessor servers. You'll gain unique insights into the internal behavior of processors that execute the code developed in high-level languages and enable you to design more efficient and scalable software systems. The book will teach you the fundamentals of computer systems including transistors, logic gates, sequential logic, and instruction operations. You will learn details of modern processor architectures and instruction sets including x86, x64, ARM, and RISC-V. You will see how to implement a RISC-V processor in a low-cost FPGA board and how to write a quantum computing program and run it on an actual quantum computer. By the end of this book, you will have a thorough understanding of modern processor and computer architectures and the future directions these architectures are likely to take.
Table of Contents (20 chapters)
1
Section 1: Fundamentals of Computer Architecture
8
Section 2: Processor Architectures and Instruction Sets
14
Section 3: Applications of Computer Architecture

Device drivers

A device driver provides a standardized interface for software applications to interact with a category of peripheral devices. This avoids the need for the developer of each application to understand and implement all of the technical details required for the proper operation of each type of device. Most device drivers allow multiple simultaneously executing applications to interact with multiple instances of associated peripherals in a secure and efficient manner.

At the lowest level of interaction, device driver code provides software instructions that manage communication interactions with the peripheral, including handling interrupts generated by device service requests. A device driver controls the operation of hardware resources provided by the processor, the peripheral device, and by other system components such as the processor chipset.

In computer systems supporting privileged execution modes, device drivers usually operate at an elevated privilege level...