U. Glaeser

Purpose and Background
Preface
Computer engineering is such a vast field that it is difficult and almost impossible to present everything
in a single book. This problem is also exaggerated by the fact that the field of computers and computer
design has been changing so rapidly that by the time this book is introduced some of the issues may
already be obsolete. However, we have tried to capture what is fundamental and therefore will be of
lasting value. Also, we tried to capture the trends, new directions, and new developments. This book
could easily fill thousands of pages because there are so many issues in computer design and so many
new fields that are popping out daily. We hope that in the future CRC Press will come with new editions
covering some of the more specialized topics in more details. Given that, and many other limitations, we
are aware that some areas were not given sufficient attention and some others were not covered at all.
However, we hope that the areas covered are covered very well given that they are written by specialists
that are recognized as leading experts in their fields. We are thankful for their valuable time and effort.
Organization
This book contains a dozen sections. First, we start with the fabrication and technology that has been a
driving factor for the electronic industry. No sector of the industry has experienced such tremendous
growth. The progress has surpassed what we thought to be possible, and limits that were once thought
of as fundamental were broken several times. When the first 256 kbit DRAM chips were introduced the
“alpha particle scare” (the problem encountered with alpha particles discharging the memory cell)
predicted that radiation effects would limit further scaling in dimensions of memory chips. Twenty years
later, we have reached 256 Mbit DRAM chips—a thousand times improvement in density—and we see
no limit to further scaling. In fact, the memory capacity has been tripling every two years while the
number of transistors on the processor chip has been doubling every two years.
The next section deals with computer architecture and computer system organization, a top-level view.
Several architectural concepts and organizations of computer systems are described. The section ends
with description of performance evaluation measures, which are the bottom line from the user’s point
of view.
Important design techniques are described in two separate sections, one of which deals exclusively with
power consumed by the system. Power consumption is becoming the most important issue as computers
are starting to penetrate large consumer product markets, and in several cases low-power consumption is
more important than the performance that the system can deliver.
Penetration of computer systems into the consumer’s market is described in the sections dealing with
signal processing, embedded applications, and future directions in computing.
Finally, reliability and testability of computer systems is described in the last section.
© 2002 by CRC Press LLC