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Computer Architecture

From bits and the instruction cycle to pipelines, caches, and parallelism. · 17 topics

Foundations & Data

Number Representation→

Two's complement and IEEE 754 floating point.

Von Neumann Architecture→

Stored-program model: CPU, memory, and the bus.

Digital Logic & Gates→

Boolean algebra, logic gates, and multiplexers.

Instruction Set & CPU

Instruction Set (ISA)→

Instruction formats; RISC vs CISC.

Addressing Modes→

Immediate, direct, indirect, indexed, register.

Instruction Cycle→

Fetch -> decode -> execute -> write-back.

CPU Datapath & Registers→

ALU, control unit, register file, and buses.

Computer Arithmetic

Binary Addition→

Ripple-carry adder and carry propagation.

Booth's Multiplication→

Signed multiplication by add and shift.

Binary Division→

Restoring and non-restoring division.

Control & Pipelining

Control Unit→

Hardwired vs microprogrammed control.

Instruction Pipeline→

5-stage pipeline: hazards, stalls, and forwarding.

Memory Hierarchy

Memory Hierarchy→

Registers -> cache -> RAM -> disk.

Cache Mapping→

Direct, set-associative, and fully associative.

Virtual Memory & TLB→

Address translation and the TLB.

I/O & Parallelism

Programmed, interrupt-driven, and DMA transfer.

Flynn's Taxonomy→

SISD, SIMD, MISD, MIMD parallelism.