Computer Architecture: Complexity and Correctness

Hardware correctness is becoming ever more important in the design of computer systems. The authors introduce a powerful new approach to the design and analysis of modern computer architectures, based on mathematically well-founded formal methods which allows for rigorous correctness proofs, accurate hardware costs determination, and performance evaluation. This book develops, at the gate level, the complete design of a pipelined RISC processor with a fully IEEE-compliant floating-point unit. In contrast to other design approaches, the design presented here is modular, clean and complete.