Computer organization and design: the hardware/software interface 5th ed.

Abstract

We believe that learning in computer science and engineering should refl ect the current state of the fi eld, as well as introduce the principles that are shaping computing. We also feel that readers in every specialty of computing need to appreciate the organizational paradigms that determine the capabilities, performance, energy, and, ultimately, the success of computer systems. Modern computer technology requires professionals of every computing specialty to understand both hardware and soft ware. Th e interaction between hardware and soft ware at a variety of levels also off ers a framework for understanding the fundamentals of computing. Whether your primary interest is hardware or soft ware, computer science or electrical engineering, the central ideas in computer organization and design are the same. Th us, our emphasis in this book is to show the relationship between hardware and soft ware and to focus on the concepts that are the basis for current computers. Th e recent switch from uniprocessor to multicore microprocessors confi rmed the soundness of this perspective, given since the fi rst edition. While programmers could ignore the advice and rely on computer architects, compiler writers, and silicon engineers to make their programs run faster or be more energy-effi cient without change, that era is over. For programs to run faster, they must become parallel. While the goal of many researchers is to make it possible for programmers to be unaware of the underlying parallel nature of the hardware they are programming, it will take many years to realize this vision. Our view is that for at least the next decade, most programmers are going to have to understand the hardware/soft ware interface if they want programs to run effi ciently on parallel computers. Th e audience for this book includes those with little experience in assembly language or logic design who need to understand basic computer organization as well as readers with backgrounds in assembly language and/or logic design who want to learn how to design a computer or understand how a system works and why it performs as it does.