64-Bit Technology

About the Book

This book gives the reader in depth access to how computer programs work at the lowest level and with the right tools the reader can start to explore, visualise and grasp the root concepts of real programming and compiler designs.

Classic processor's architectures are constantly evolved, re-defined and designed to cope with the demands for high performance systems, the book gives the reader "out of the box" big picture of how the hardware development has been driven to its current state by looking in depth at the fundamentals at the micro-levels. The book examines the new 64-bit technology, which is the new buzz in the IT industry and rather than oversell the technology, the book aims to apprise the reader of both the beneficial and challenging aspects of this technology for the next generation of computers.

The book looks into the aspect of code optimization, which is one of the key factors influencing the hardware designs. Will the major microchips manufacturers be able to produce smart chips that have built-in mechanism for code optimization rather than depending on smart programmers to tackle hardware issues?

The book provides the reader with a detailed roadmap of the microprocessor architecture from its early age to the present time explaining the twists and turns of the major chipmakers and the direction it is heading to.

In the 20th century, our society transformed from rural farm based communities to industrialized cities. In the 21st century, our society is evolving into a virtual information society and with the popularity of the Internet, distributed computing has been re-invigorated bringing hundreds and millions of users all over the world together volunteering to help with research projects such as AIDS and cancer making use of the idle CPU's power to solve mammoth computational tasks.

Now we are at the beginning of a new technological era where software and hardware constructs itself using new advances in the genetic proramming of the field of artifical intelligence.

The book introduces the reader to the concept of reversible computing and the vision of non-heat microprocessors and how reversible computers could potentially become thousands of times faster, more energy efficient, and more cost-effective than other approaches in the next few decades.

About the Author

Laith Saadi started to learn computer programming from the age of 14 on a very early Z-80 MSX machine. His interest in computers and programming helped him to receive his honours degree in 1997 in Mathematics and Engineering Mechanics from Strathclyde University in Glasgow (Scotland). He has worked on various projects related to recruitment software designs, code optimisation and analysis.