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

Summary

This chapter described the primary functional units of a simple processor, consisting of the control unit, the ALU, and the registers. An overview of processor instructions and addressing modes followed. The instruction categories implemented by the 6502 processor were introduced with the intent of demonstrating the variety and utility of instructions available in a simple processor architecture.

The concepts involved in interrupt processing were introduced and demonstrated in the context of the 6502 architecture. This chapter concluded with an overview of the most common architectural approaches to input/output operations (memory-mapped I/O and port-mapped I/O) and the basic modes of performing I/O in a computer system (programmed I/O, interrupt-driven I/O, and DMA).

Having completed this chapter, you should now possess a conceptual understanding of processor functional units, instruction processing, interrupt handling, and input/output operations. This information forms...