Modern Computer Architecture and Organization: Learn processor architecture including RISC-V, and design of PCs, cloud servers, and smartphones

by Jim Ledin

A no-nonsense, practical guide to current and future processor and computer architectures, enabling you to design computer systems and develop better software applications across a variety of domains 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. 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 from tiny embedded devices to warehouse-size cloud server farms. A general understanding of computer processors is helpful but not required.

Genres: Computer Science, Programming, Technical, Technology, Architecture

ebook

Published May 11, 2020

Reviews

[Umut Durak · Rating 5 out of 5]

At Modern Computer Architecture and Organization, Jim Ledin presents a comprehensive compilation of various topics about computer architecture and organization. The book is composed of three sections. It starts with the fundamentals of computer architectures where the building blocks of computers are thoroughly introduced. The second section presents the processor architectures and instruction sets. After explaining the basics of processors, and memory architectures, it covers modern processor architectures and instruction sets. There is a whole chapter about RISC-V. The last section is about the application of computer architecture. It introduces two important topics: processor virtualization and domain-specific computer architectures.
Jim Ledin is an esteemed engineer with lifelong industry experience. The reader benefits from the author's wisdom about hands-on computer architecture and organization. Communicating in the practitioners' level while achieving high scholar standards is what makes this book unique. The book will definitely serve as a textbook, moreover, it will be one of the valuable reference books of professionals' bookshelves. I enjoyed the book at many points. The paragraphs about Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine and ENIAC, the subsections regarding device drivers, and the chapter about processor virtualization are some of them. I most like finding all modern processors, x86, x64, ARM architectures, and particularly RISC-V under one cover. Personally, I would love to see more connections to systems programming, compilers, or modern software engineering practices, but that may surely be a biased remark due to my background.
I would definitely recommend the book. It is a must-read if you study CS or EE, do computer architecture and organization for living, or just enjoy reading about it.

[Ivy Brundege]

guys my textbooks aren’t interesting like yours are but i wanted to be part of the fun :(

[minhhai · Rating 4 out of 5]

Disclaimer: I only read half of the book (and that's all I needed).

It's an overview book on computer architecture covering the basic components of logic circuits, ALU, memories, and how to put them together to construct a computer with its instruction set, low-levelled programming language and peripheral. The book also covers different types of computers (warehouse-scale, mobile devices, specialized ones, etc) and instruction sets (CISC, RISC, ARM, etc).

It's very easy to read, little specialized knowledge is required. The many different topics help create the big picture of how computers are constructed and how they work. Overall, it's a good introductory book on computer architecture.

Some parts of the book are a bit lengthy (for example, Assembly language which is of little use these days), some are superficial (feel like the author just summarizes them from Wikipedia), and some are poorly written because of the lack of domain knowledge (for example, on the spintronics and quantum computers).

[Greg · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book does a great job to you from the logic gates all the way up to desktop computer systems, providing information on all of these topics along the way. Computer architectures are discused as well. If you can stomach this book, it provides an excellent understanding of computers. I was mainly interested in the first section on digital logic and the basic components of electronic circuits, with flip flops and latches and how computers are basically just a bunch of SR 1 bit flip flops stuck together in scale. It was interesting to learn how an NPN transistor worked. I really enjoyed this book and it is a good reference as well as a great book to understand very well computers from 1 bit flip flops to super computers

[Baris Tura · Rating 5 out of 5]

Author thoroughly explains computer architectures. I found everything that makes me scratch my head.
Since the book was written at the end of 2019, it provides updated info about computing as it changes very fast.

[Andrew Sever · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really well written book. Some concepts I never really understood before, this cleared up.

[Cristiano Morgado · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you have a degree in Computer Science this book is almost a summary of what you have learned with some updated references and examples (especially if you've graduated a long time ago), plus some topics you might have not learned about academically.

As the author warns in the introduction, the book won't cover every topic in detail, otherwise, it wouldn't all fit in a single book, leaving it to the reader to delve deeper using all the available online resources if they want to learn more about a given subject. The book will introduce you to the fundamentals and then, if you're so inclined, you can use what you've learned to find out more online and put it into practice.


Overall it's a pretty solid book that can work as a refresher, a reference book, or a good overall fundamental introduction to newcomers, as long as you're comfortable with complementing what you read with your own research and practice.

[Deepak Koranga · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enjoyed reading this one, not just as a refresher, but also for some new concepts.
The chapters are well-organized and have a nice blend of history, evolution and the recent trend. The author goes from ENIAC to iPhone 13, and from Flip flops to Bitcoin mining architectures.

I would recommend this one to the beginners, intermediate and the ones who didn't have a formal education in Computer Engineering and would like to fill in the gaps in their understanding of Embedded Systems.

[Osvaldo Santana Neto]

This book will teach you the fundamentals of computer systems including transistors, logic gates, sequential logic, and instruction pipelines. 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.