Computer Organization and Design: The Hardware/Software Interface(The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Computer Architecture and Design)

Computer Organization and Design, Fourth Edition, has been updated with new exercises and improvements throughout suggested by instructors teaching from the book. It covers the revolutionary change from sequential to parallel computing, with a chapter on parallelism and sections in every chapter highlighting parallel hardware and software topics. It includes an appendix by the Chief Scientist and the Director of Architecture of NVIDIA covering the emergence and importance of the modern GPU, describing in detail for the first time the highly parallel, highly multithreaded multiprocessor optimized for visual computing. A companion CD provides a toolkit of simulators and compilers along with tutorials for using them, as well as advanced content for further study and a search utility for finding content on the CD and in the printed text. For the convenience of readers who have purchased an ebook edition or who may have misplaced the CD-ROM, all CD content is available as a download at bit.ly/nFXcLq. This book is recommended for professional digital system designers, programmers, application developers, and system software developers; and undergraduate students in Computer Science, Computer Engineering and Electrical Engineering courses in Computer Organization, Computer Design, ranging from Sophomore required courses to Senior Electives.

Table of Contents:
Computer Abstractions and Technology Instructions: Language of the Computer Arithmetic for Computers Assessing and Understanding Performance The Processor Enhancing Performance with Pipelining Large and Fast: Exploiting Memory Hierarchy Storage, Networks and Other Peripherals Multiprocessors and Clusters Mapping Control to Hardware A Survey of RISC Architectures for Desktop, Server, and Embedded Computers

About the Author :
David A. Patterson has been teaching computer architecture at the University of California, Berkeley, since joining the faculty in 1977, where he holds the Pardee Chair of Computer Science. His teaching has been honored by the Distinguished Teaching Award from the University of California, the Karlstrom Award from ACM, and the Mulligan Education Medal and Undergraduate Teaching Award from IEEE. Patterson received the IEEE Technical Achievement Award and the ACM Eckert-Mauchly Award for contributions to RISC, and he shared the IEEE Johnson Information Storage Award for contributions to RAID. He also shared the IEEE John von Neumann Medal and the C & C Prize with John Hennessy. Like his co-author, Patterson is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Computer History Museum, ACM, and IEEE, and he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Sciences, and the Silicon Valley Engineering Hall of Fame. He served on the Information Technology Advisory Committee to the U.S. President, as chair of the CS division in the Berkeley EECS department, as chair of the Computing Research Association, and as President of ACM. This record led to Distinguished Service Awards from ACM and CRA. John L. Hennessy is the tenth president of Stanford University, where he has been a member of the faculty since 1977 in the departments of electrical engineering and computer science. Hennessy is a Fellow of the IEEE and ACM; a member of the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Science, and the American Philosophical Society; and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Among his many awards are the 2001 Eckert-Mauchly Award for his contributions to RISC technology, the 2001 Seymour Cray Computer Engineering Award, and the 2000 John von Neumann Award, which he shared with David Patterson. He has also received seven honorary doctorates.

Review :
"The new coverage of multiprocessors and parallelism lives up to the standards of this well-written classic. It provides well-motivated, gentle introductions to the new topics, as well as many details and examples drawn from curent hardware." - John Greiner, Rice University "Patterson and Hennessy not only improve the pedagogy of the traditional material on pipelined processors and memory hierarchies, but also greatly expand the multiprocessor coverage to include emerging multicore processors and GPUs. Computer Organization and Design sets a new benchmark against which all other architecture books must be compared." - David A. Wood, University of Wisconsin-Madison "Intended for computer science students and programmers of varied experience levels, this textbook on computer design and engineering provides a firm foundation in hardware engineering and computer architecture that will aid readers not only in working with hardware design and assembly language programming, but inform software engineers as to the underlying technologies and principles at work in machines they program for. Topics discussed include computer abstractions and technologies, instructions as to the language of computer hardware, arithmetic for computers, processors, memory hierarchies, storage and I/O, and multicores and multiprocessors. A series of appendices offers detailed information on graphics and GPU processes. Chapters include numerous illustrations and code examples and an accompanying CD-ROM provides additional chapters and other resources. This fourth edition is updated to account for the latest technological improvements."--Reference and Research Book News, Inc. "This book, now in its fourth edition, is a comprehensive introduction to modern computer architecture and is aimed at a variety of audiences with backgrounds in either hardware or software.While there is a great deal of technical content, concepts are lucidly described and always given meaningful context. I found this book to be an interesting read and certainly a book I'd plan to read again."--BCS.org