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Multiple Perspectives: Systems are viewed from both the architectural (attributes of a system visible to a machine language programmer) and organizational (operational units and their interconnections that realize the architecture) perspectives to give students context.
Unified Treatment of I/O: Provides full understanding of I/O functions and structures, including two important external interface examples: FireWire and InfiniBand.
Focus on RISC: Students gain a broad understanding of this technology, found in virtually all contemporary machines.
Parallel Processors: Exceptionally clear, well-organized treatment of symmetric multiprocessors (SMP), clusters, and NUMA systems.
Running Case Studies: Case studies of Intel x86 and embedded ARM architectures supplement and explain material.
Microprogrammed Implementation: This technology is given a full treatment, so students gain a complete understanding of processor organization.
Interactive Simulations: Over 20 online web simulations are keyed to major portions of the text to illustrate computer architecture design issues.
Multicore Processor Coverage: Explain this standard in processor design.
Embedded Processor Coverage: Includes coverage of embedded processors and the unique design issues they present. The ARM architecture is used as a case study.
Online Appendices: To conserve space, the appendices are available online as PDFs.
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