Modern Computer Architecture and Organization

A no-nonsense, practical guide to current and future processor and computer architectures that enables you to design computer systems and develop better software applications across a variety of domains

Key Features

• Understand digital circuitry through the study of transistors, logic gates, and sequential logic
• Learn the architecture of x86, x64, ARM, and RISC-V processors, iPhones, and high-performance gaming PCs
• Study the design principles underlying the domains of cybersecurity, bitcoin, and self-driving cars

Book Description

Are you a software developer, systems designer, or computer architecture student looking for a methodical introduction to digital device architectures, but are overwhelmed by the complexity of modern systems? This step-by-step guide will teach you how modern computer systems work with the help of practical examples and exercises. You'll gain insights into the internal behavior of processors down to the circuit level and will understand how the hardware executes code developed in high-level languages.

This book will teach you the fundamentals of computer systems including transistors, logic gates, sequential logic, and instruction pipelines. 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 write a quantum computing program and run it on an actual quantum computer.

This edition has been updated to cover the architecture and design principles underlying the important domains of cybersecurity, blockchain and bitcoin mining, and self-driving vehicles.

By the end of this book, you will have a thorough understanding of modern processors and computer architecture and the future directions these technologies are likely to take.

What you will learn

• Understand the fundamentals of transistor technology and digital circuits
• Explore the concepts underlying pipelining and superscalar processing
• Implement a complete RISC-V processor in a low-cost FPGA
• Understand the technology used to implement virtual machines
• Learn about security-critical computing applications like financial transaction processing
• Get up to speed with blockchain and the hardware architectures used in bitcoin mining
• Explore the capabilities of self-navigating vehicle computing architectures
• Write a quantum computing program and run it on a real quantum computer

Who this book is for

This book is for software developers, computer engineering students, system designers, reverse engineers, and anyone looking to understand the architecture and design principles underlying modern computer systems: ranging from tiny, embedded devices to warehouse-size cloud server farms. A general understanding of computer processors is helpful but not required.

Table of Contents

1. Introducing Computer Architecture
2. Digital Logic
3. Processor Elements
4. Computer System Components
5. Hardware-Software Interface
6. Specialized Computing Domains
7. Processor and Memory Architectures
8. Performance-Enhancing Techniques
9. Specialized Processor Extensions
10. Modern Processor Architectures and Instruction Sets
11. The RISC-V Architecture and Instruction Set
12. Processor Virtualization
13. Domain-Specific Computer Architectures
14. Cybersecurity and Confidential Computing Architectures
15. Blockchain and Bitcoin Mining Architectures
16. Self-Driving Vehicle Architectures
17. Quantum Computing and Other Future Directions in Computer Architectures
18. Appendix

Jim Ledin is the CEO of Ledin Engineering, Inc. Jim is an expert in embedded software and hardware design and testing. He is also an expert in system cybersecurity assessment and penetration testing. He has a B.S. degree in aerospace engineering from Iowa State University and an M.S. degree in electrical and computer engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Jim is a registered professional electrical engineer in California, a Certified Information System Security Professional (CISSP), a Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH), and a Certified Penetration Tester (CPT).