Computer Organization and Design MIPS Edition, 6th Edition

1

Computer Abstractions and Technology

Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them.

Alfred North Whitehead, An Introduction to Mathematics, 1911

Outline

• 1.1 Introduction 3
• 1.2 Seven Great Ideas in Computer Architecture 10
• 1.3 Below Your Program 13
• 1.4 Under the Covers 16
• 1.5 Technologies for Building Processors and Memory 24
• 1.6 Performance 28
• 1.7 The Power Wall 40
• 1.8 The Sea Change: The Switch from Uniprocessors to Multiprocessors 43
• 1.9 Real Stuff: Benchmarking the Intel Core i7 46
• 1.10 Going Faster: Matrix Multiply in Python 49
• 1.11 Fallacies and Pitfalls 50
• 1.12 Concluding Remarks 53
• 1.13 Historical Perspective and Further Reading 55
• 1.14 Self-Study 55
• 1.15 Exercises  ...