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

Logic gates

Circuits such as the NOT gate in Figure 2.3 are so common in digital electronics that they are assigned schematic symbols to enable construction of higher-level diagrams representing more complex logic functions.

The symbol for a NOT gate is a triangle with a small circle at the output, shown in Figure 2.4:

Figure 2.4: NOT gate schematic symbol

Figure 2.4: NOT gate schematic symbol

The triangle represents an amplifier, meaning this is a device that turns a weaker input signal into a stronger output signal. The circle represents the inversion operator.

More complex logical operations can be developed by building upon the design of the NOT gate.

The circuit in Figure 2.5 uses two transistors to perform an AND operation on the inputs Input1 and Input2. An AND operation has an Output of 1 when both inputs are 1, otherwise the Output is 0. Resistor R2 pulls the Output signal low unless both transistors have been switched on by the high levels of the Input1 and Input2 signals...