Quantitative Research Methods in Computer Architecture

Author: John Lennессy
Publisher:
Publication Date: 2004-03-01
Features: The third edition of Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach should have been easy to write. After all, our quantitative approach hasn't changed, and we sought to continue our focus on the basic principles of computer design through two editions. The examples had to be updated, of course, just as we did for the second edition. The dramatic and ongoing advances in the field as well as the creation of new markets for computers and new approaches for those markets, however, led us to rewrite almost the entire book. The pace of innovation in computer architecture continued unabated in the six years since the second edition. As when we wrote the second edition, we found that numerous new concepts needed to be introduced, and other material designated as more basic. Although this is officially the third edition of Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach, it is really our fifth book in a series that began with the first edition, continued with Computer Organization and Design: The Hardware/Software Interface (COD:HSI), and then the second edition of both books. Over time, ideas that were once found here have moved to COD:HSI or to background tutorials in the appendices. This migration, combined with our goal to present concepts in the context of the most recent computers, meant there was remarkably little from the second edition that could be preserved intact, and practically nothing is left from the first edition.