Presents the fundamentals & design of microcoded systems, starting from simple state machines & using a progression of four built & tested circuits: a basic ROM-based state machine; a state machine with an ALU & registers; a simple CPU with an 8-bit data bus & a 16-bit address bus; a bit-slice based CPU that allows interrupts, bus sharing & asynchronous data transfers. All circuits are built using real devices with reference made to real data manuals, giving the text a more practical slant.

Foundations of Microprogramming: Architecture, Software, and Applications discusses the foundations and trends in microprogramming, focusing on the architectural, software, and application aspects of microprogramming. The book reviews microprocessors, microprogramming concepts, and characteristics, as well as the architectural features in microprogrammed computers. The text explains support software and the different hierarchies or levels of languages. These include assembler languages which are mnemonic or symbolic representation of machine commands; the procedure oriented machine-dependent; and the procedure oriented machine independent. A simulator is used to interpret programs written in machine or micro-language before the instructions in the program can be run. A simulator and translator (which change some steps from one program written in another language to another program) should interface with the design language of the computer for these components to operate even when a new machine is developed. The book cites four existing computers which have "simple" diagonal microinstructions such as the Hewlett-Packard HP21MX and the Microdata 3200. Horizontal types of microinstructions allow parallel execution of many micro-operations, such as the Cal Data family of computers, the Varian 73, and the NANODATA QM-1. Microprogramming is applied in emulation, program enhancement, operating systems, signal processing, and graphics. The text can benefit programmers, computer engineers, computer technicians, and computer instructors dealing with many aspects of computers such as programming, hardware interface, networking, engineering or design.

With the new developments in computer architecture, fairly recent publications can quickly become outdated. Computer Architecture: Software Aspects, Coding, and Hardware takes a modern approach. This comprehensive, practical text provides that critical understanding of a central processor by clearly detailing fundamentals, and cutting edge design features. With its balanced software/hardware perspective and its description of Pentium processors, the book allows readers to acquire practical PC software experience. The text presents a foundation-level set of ideas, design concepts, and applications that fully meet the requirements of computer organization and architecture courses. The book features a "bottom up" computer design approach, based upon the author's thirty years experience in both academe and industry. By combining computer engineering with electrical engineering, the author describes how logic circuits are designed in a CPU. The extensive coverage of a micprogrammed CPU and new processor design features gives the insight of current computer development. Computer Architecture: Software Aspects, Coding, and Hardware presents a comprehensive review of the subject, from beginner to advanced levels. Topics include: o Two's complement numbers o Integer overflow o Exponent overflow and underflow o Looping o Addressing modes o Indexing o Subroutine linking o I/O structures o Memory mapped I/O o Cycle stealing o Interrupts o Multitasking o Microprogrammed CPU o Multiplication tree o Instruction queue o Multimedia instructions o Instruction cache o Virtual memory o Data cache o Alpha chip o Interprocessor communications o Branch prediction o Speculative loading o Register stack o JAVA virtual machine o Stack machine principles

This textbook provides a clear and concise introduction to computer architecture and implementation. Two important themes are interwoven throughout the book. The first is an overview of the major concepts and design philosophies of computer architecture and organization. The second is the early introduction and use of analytic modeling of computer performance. A unique feature of the book is that memory systems are discussed before processor implementations. The book contains many worked examples and over 130 homework exercises. It is an ideal textbook for a one-semester undergraduate course in computer architecture and implementation.

Computer organization and architecture is becoming an increasingly important core subject in the areas of computer science and its applications, and information technology constantly steers the relentless revolution going on in this discipline. This textbook demystifies the state of the art using a simple and step-by-step development from traditional fundamentals to the most advanced concepts entwined with this subject, maintaining a reasonable balance among various theoretical principles, numerous design approaches, and their actual practical implementations. Being driven by the diversified knowledge gained directly from working in the constantly changing environment of the information technology (IT) industry, the author sets the stage by describing the modern issues in different areas of this subject. He then continues to effectively provide a comprehensive source of material with exciting new developments using a wealth of concrete examples related to recent regulatory changes in the modern design and architecture of different categories of computer systems associated with real-life instances as case studies, ranging from micro to mini, supermini, mainframes, cluster architectures, massively parallel processing (MPP) systems, and even supercomputers with commodity processors. Many of the topics that are briefly discussed in this book to conserve space for new materials are elaborately described from the design perspective to their ultimate practical implementations with representative schematic diagrams available on the book’s website. Key Features Microprocessor evolutions and their chronological improvements with illustrations taken from Intel, Motorola, and other leading families Multicore concept and subsequent multicore processors, a new standard in processor design Cluster architecture, a vibrant organizational and architectural development in building up massively distributed/parallel systems InfiniBand, a high-speed link for use in cluster system architecture providing a single-system image FireWire, a high-speed serial bus used for both isochronous real-time data transfer and asynchronous applications, especially needed in multimedia and mobile phones Evolution of embedded systems and their specific characteristics Real-time systems and their major design issues in brief Improved main memory technologies with their recent releases of DDR2, DDR3, Rambus DRAM, and Cache DRAM, widely used in all types of modern systems, including large clusters and high-end servers DVD optical disks and flash drives (pen drives) RAID, a common approach to configuring multiple-disk arrangements used in large server-based systems A good number of problems along with their solutions on different topics after their delivery Exhaustive material with respective figures related to the entire text to illustrate many of the computer design, organization, and architecture issues with examples are available online at http://crcpress.com/9780367255732 This book serves as a textbook for graduate-level courses for computer science engineering, information technology, electrical engineering, electronics engineering, computer science, BCA, MCA, and other similar courses.