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

Cache memory

A cache memory is a memory region that stores program instructions or data, usually instructions or data that have been accessed recently, for future use. The primary purpose of cache memory is to increase the speed of repeatedly accessing the same memory location or nearby memory locations. To be effective, accessing the cached data must be significantly faster than accessing the original source of the data, referred to as the backing store.

When caching is in use, each attempt to access a memory location begins with a search of the cache. If the data is present, the processor retrieves and uses it immediately. This is called a cache hit. If the cache search is unsuccessful (a cache miss), the data must be retrieved from the backing store. In the process of retrieving the requested data, a copy is added to the cache for anticipated future use.

Cache memory is used for a variety of purposes in computer systems. Some examples of cache memory applications are:

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