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

Building a future-tolerant skill set

Given the technological transitions that kicked off the era of transistor-based digital computing, and the likelihood of similar future events, it is important for professionals in the field of computer architecture to keep up with ongoing advances and to develop some intuition as to the likely directions the technology will take in the future. This section provides some recommended practices for keeping up with state-of-the-art technology.

Continuous learning

Computer architecture professionals must be willing to embrace the idea that technology continues to evolve rapidly, and they must devote substantial ongoing efforts to monitoring advances and factoring new developments into their day-to-day work and career-planning decisions.

The prudent professional relies on a wide variety of information sources to track technological developments and assess their impact on career goals. Some sources of information, such as traditional news reports...