Computer Organization and Design RISC-V Edition: The Hardware Software Interface (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Computer
The new RISC-V Edition of Computer Organization and Design features the RISC-V open source instruction set architecture, the first open source architecture designed to be used in modern computing environments such as cloud computing, mobile devices, and other embedded systems.
With the post-PC era now upon us, Computer Organization and Design moves forward to explore this generational change with examples, exercises, and material highlighting the emergence of mobile computing and the Cloud. Updated content featuring tablet computers, Cloud infrastructure, and the x86 (cloud computing) and ARM (mobile computing devices) architectures is included.
An online companion Web site provides advanced content for further study, appendices, glossary, references, and recommended reading.
- Features RISC-V, the first such architecture designed to be used in modern computing environments, such as cloud computing, mobile devices, and other embedded systems
- Includes relevant examples, exercises, and material highlighting the emergence of mobile computing and the cloud
Why Read This Book
You will get a hands-on, architecture-first introduction to modern computer design centered on the open RISC‑V ISA, learning how processors, compilers, and operating systems interact at the hardware–software boundary. The book balances clear theory with practical examples and exercises so you can apply concepts to embedded systems, IoT devices, or cloud-scale processors.
Who Will Benefit
Embedded and systems engineers or advanced students who know basic programming and digital logic and want to understand processor internals, ISA design, performance trade-offs, and the hardware–software interface for RISC‑V and other modern ISAs.
Level: Intermediate — Prerequisites: Familiarity with programming (C recommended), basic digital logic and binary arithmetic, and introductory operating-systems or computer-architecture concepts.
Key Takeaways
- Explain the RISC‑V instruction set and how ISA choices affect compiler and system design.
- Design and analyze processor datapaths and control (single-cycle and multi-cycle) and implement pipelining with hazard handling.
- Evaluate performance using CPI, Amdahl’s Law, benchmarks, and basic pipeline and cache metrics.
- Design and reason about memory hierarchies and cache behavior for embedded and general-purpose systems.
- Describe interrupts, exceptions, I/O, and the hardware–software interface used by operating systems and firmware.
- Apply concepts to real examples and exercises that connect ISA, microarchitecture, compilers, and systems.
Topics Covered
- Introduction: Computers, Programs, and Performance
- RISC‑V Instruction Set Architecture
- Arithmetic for Computer Design and ALU Structure
- Building a Datapath and Control: Single- and Multi-cycle Processors
- Pipelining: Design, Hazards, and Forwarding
- Instruction-Level Parallelism and Dynamic Scheduling
- Memory Hierarchy: Caches, Virtual Memory, and Locality
- Storage Systems, I/O, and Interrupts
- Parallelism, Multicore Processors, and Scale-Up
- Exceptions, Privilege, and the Hardware‑Software Interface
- Performance Measurement and Benchmarking
- Case Studies: ARM/x86 comparisons and RISC‑V examples
- Appendices: RISC‑V Assembly Reference, Verilog/implementation notes
Languages, Platforms & Tools
How It Compares
Compared with Hennessy & Patterson's Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach (which is broader and more metrics-driven), this Patterson text is more accessible and course-friendly with a hands-on focus on RISC‑V; for a software-centric complement see Bryant & O'Hallaron's Computer Systems: A Programmer's Perspective.
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