You're reading from Modern Computer Architecture and Organization Learn x86, ARM, and RISC-V architectures and the design of smartphones, PCs, and cloud servers

Product type Paperback

Published in Apr 2020

Publisher Packt

ISBN-13 9781838984397

Length 560 pages

Edition 1st Edition

Tools

FPGA

Concepts

Computer Architecture

Author (1):

Jim Ledin

View More author details

Table of Contents (20) Chapters

Preface

1. Section 1: Fundamentals of Computer Architecture

2. Chapter 1: Introducing Computer Architecture FREE CHAPTER

3. Chapter 2: Digital Logic

4. Chapter 3: Processor Elements

5. Chapter 4: Computer System Components

6. Chapter 5: Hardware-Software Interface

7. Chapter 6: Specialized Computing Domains

8. Section 2: Processor Architectures and Instruction Sets

9. Chapter 7: Processor and Memory Architectures

10. Chapter 8: Performance-Enhancing Techniques

11. Chapter 9: Specialized Processor Extensions

12. Chapter 10: Modern Processor Architectures and Instruction Sets

13. Chapter 11: The RISC-V Architecture and Instruction Set

14. Section 3: Applications of Computer Architecture

15. Chapter 12: Processor Virtualization

16. Chapter 13: Domain-Specific Computer Architectures

17. Chapter 14: Future Directions in Computer Architectures

18. Answers to Exercises

19. Other Books You May Enjoy

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BIOS

A computer's BIOS contains the code that first executes at system startup. In the early days of personal computers, the BIOS provided a set of programming interfaces that abstracted the details of peripheral interfaces such as keyboards and video displays.

In modern PCs, the BIOS performs system testing and peripheral device configuration during startup. After that process has completed, the processor interacts with peripheral devices directly without further use of the BIOS.

Early PCs stored the BIOS code in a read-only memory (ROM) chip on the motherboard. This code was permanently programmed and could not be altered. Modern motherboards generally store the motherboard BIOS in a reprogrammable flash memory device. This allows BIOS updates to be installed to add new features or to fix problems found in earlier firmware versions. The process of updating the BIOS is commonly known as flashing the BIOS.

One downside of BIOS reprogrammability is that this capability...