Digital Design and Computer Architecture, RISC-V Edition
I am an instructor, and we use this textbook to teach Computer Architecture. I enjoyed reading it and thought the authors wrote in a simple and understandable style. They introduced and built on concepts throughout the book, providing detailed explanations and a wealth of information. The book can be read cover-to-cover or used as a reference. It offers many circuits, designs, and relevant information for each topic.
The textbook uses examples throughout each chapter to work through problems and designs. At the end of each chapter, there are numerous exercise problems that cover the material, with solutions to odd-numbered exercises provided through an online supplement on the authors’ website. Additionally, the authors include sample interview questions that have been asked during real job interviews—something worth looking at if you’re preparing for one!
Classroom materials are provided via online supplements, which include lecture slides, textbook figures, solutions to odd-numbered exercises, links to lecture videos, hands-on labs, HDL code, and supplementary chapters/appendices. Other instructor resources are available from the publisher’s website. However, a note about the labs: the FPGA and simulation tools used in the book are already several versions out-of-date and do not match the descriptions exactly as outlined in the labs, so they had to be adapted. For instance, ModelSim has now been replaced by the Intel Questa simulator, which requires registration for a free license. The RED-V board used in the labs is out of stock. However, there was a very good and easy-to-use RISC-V simulator called Venus available on the web, which is also used in the labs.
One quirk in the textbook is that the RISC-V Instruction Set Summary (Appendix B) is missing a page (it appears blank). Fortunately, we were able to download a complete PDF version from the authors’ website, which contains the full instruction set.
Overall, Digital Design and Computer Architecture – RISC-V edition is a well-written textbook with a few quirks. I found it to be an enjoyable read, and the resources provided have been immensely useful in the classroom. I am grateful to the authors for their efforts and recommend this book to those seeking an excellent pedagogical approach to teaching and learning computer architecture using the RISC-V instruction set.