Product Description
Is your memory hierarchy stopping your microprocessor from performing at the high level it should be? Memory Systems: Cache, DRAM, Disk shows you how to resolve this problem. The book tells you everything you need to know about the logical design and operation, physical design and operation, performance characteristics and resulting design trade-offs, and the energy consumption of modern memory hierarchies. You learn how to to tackle the challenging optimization problems that result from the side-effects that can appear at any point in the entire hierarchy.As a result you will be able to design and emulate the entire memory hierarchy. . Understand all levels of the system hierarchy -Xcache, DRAM, and disk. . Evaluate the system-level effects of all design choices. . Model performance and energy consumption for each component in the memory hierarchy.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 5.0 based on 4 reviews)

George Chiu by George Chiu (Yorktown Heights, NY)

4 Stars
March 26, 2009
This book provides a much needed update from Dick Matick's book written in 1977. To be fair, I have read only the DRAM section. The book is well written. I did not give a 5-star rating because some of the figures were originally in color, and when it was printed as black-and-white ones, it is hard to decipher what corresponds to what. Hopefully, future editions can correct for that.

Overall Memory Coverage by Steven Millard

5 Stars
December 30, 2007
This book is an excellent source that covers system, component and architectures of memory systems and how the total computer memory system is put together into a working system. The coverage of the material is up to date and addresses the critical issues that are facing the present and next generation memory systems being implemented and designed today. The book was well written and is a great source for engineering students and even to a degree non-engineering people. For me, a seasoned engineer, that is relatively new to memory systems, is has been a great source in helping me understand the overall system and how it all works. It also addresses some of the major engineering issues facing todays design that I am presently working on and covers the details of the components to give a good overall understanding of how it all fits together. An excellent overall source to have on hand for any engineer working on memory systems

The new standard for memory system reference books by A. Grossmeier

5 Stars
October 30, 2007
Based on what I have read through so far, it is superb. I can see it very easily becoming the industry's new reference standard for memory system design. Very well done!

Take with a grain of salt - I'm one of the authors by B. Jacob

5 Stars
September 19, 2007
Anyone who has built a computer or measured its performance recently knows that all but the slowest CPUs spend roughly 90% of their time twiddling their thumbs, checking their wristwatches, waiting on the memory system. The memory system today defines computer-system performance, yet very little is written about it (how does it work? what are the parameters? how to optimize it? etc.). So we wrote this book to address that -- it covers all facets of memory-systems design. Paraphrasing Richard Sites, one of the lead architects of the DEC Alpha processor over a decade ago, memory systems design is the only thing worth focusing on right now ... all else is a waste of time. Hopefully this will help you to build something that rocks; that was our goal. Minor correction: the book is hardcover, not paperback.

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