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Computer Architecture and Organization: An Integrated Approach

ISBN: 978-0-471-73388-1

February 2007

544 pages

Description
Computer Architecture and Organization: An Integrated Approach exposes the inner workings of the modern digital computer at a level that demystifies the inner workings of the machine for undergraduate students. The text covers topics normally found in a first course in computer architecture or computer organization and places the beginning student on a solid track for continuing studies in computer-related disciplines.
About the Author
MILES MURDOCCAserves as the President and CEO of Internet Institute USA (IIUSA), a private postsecondary information technology (IT) school specializing in networking, operating systems, IP telephony, programming, and security. Previously, Dr. Murdocca has been a computer science faculty member at Rutgers University and a research scientist at AT&T Bell Laboratories working in computer architecture, networking, and digital optical computing. He is the author of A Digital Design Methodology for Optical Computing and Principles of Computer Architecture and a contributing author to Computer Systems Design and Architecture, Second Edition as well as the author of dozens of professional papers and patents relating to information technology.

VINCE HEURING is an associate professor and acting chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Colorado at Boulder.  He has been at the university since 1984, and prior to that he spent three years at the University of Cincinnati.  Professor Heuring’s research encompasses computer architectures and programming language design implementation. He and his colleague, Harry Jordan, designed and built the world’s first stored program optical computer, “SPOC.”

Features
Balanced coverage of software and hardware
  • The content addresses the core fundamental topics without spending too much time on hardware related issues
  • Each topic is covered in the context of the entire machine allowing students to see how implementation affects behavior.
  • More software type issues like networking are included as a continuing thread.

Case Studies

  • Motivate students with real world examples in each chapter
  • Some cases are: “Patriot Missile Defense failure caused by loss of precision”, “What happens when a computer boots up?” and “How a virus infects a machine” 

Feature boxes cover commercial processors

  • Students learn about Intel and Motorola processors which dominate the industry

Uses subset of SPARC, grounded in a real-world computer architecture tool for instruction set architecture throughout the text

  • A RISC Computer (ARC) is complemented with platform-independent software tools
  • ARCTools suite is fully class-tested and supports the examples used in the book