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

Modern computer system specifications

Having absorbed the information provided up to this point, you should be able to interpret most of the specifications of a modern computer motherboard, processor, and chipset. This section provides an example of the specifications for a current (2019) motherboard with some explanation of the individual features.

The designers of a computer motherboard must make a number of decisions such as the number of PCIe expansion ports, number of DIMM slots, number of USB ports, and the number of SATA ports to be provided in a particular motherboard model. These decisions are guided by the target customer demographic, whether it be gamers, business users, or cost-conscious home users.

The following example motherboard presented is the Gigabyte Z390 Designare, a higher-performance board intended for gaming applications that supports gaming-related technical capabilities such as overclocking. Overclocking involves increasing the clock frequencies for...