The Unabridged Pentium 4 : IA32 Processor Genealogy (PC System Architecture Series)

Rating:
Summary: Value depends on accepting the book's purpose
Review: Page 1 of 'The Unabridged Pentium 4' (TUP4) claims 'there is real value in understanding how the architecture has grown over the years,' where the 'architecture' is the IA-32 register set, instruction set, and software exceptions. If you accept this premise, you will find TUP4 to be a valuable book. If you are looking for detail on the lowest-level of programming on IA-32, you should download Intel's free IA-32 Intel Architecture Software Developer s Manual.

Readers looking for information on IA-32 architecture can first turn to three free books Intel provides in .pdf format: Volume 1: Basic Architecture (448 pp); Volumes 2A (580 pp) & 2B (416 pp): Instruction Set Reference; and Volume 3: System Programming Guide (838 pp), for a total of 2282 pp. Volume 1 describes the basic architecture and programming environment of an IA-32 processor. Volumes 2A & 2B are aimed at application programmers and describe the instruction set of the processor and the opcode structure. Volume 3, for OS engineers and BIOS designers, describes the OS support environment of an IA-32 processor and IA-32 processor compatibility information.

TUP4 differs from these volumes in that TUP4 describes Intel processors from a historical and evolutionary standpoint. Although TUP4 has 'Pentium 4' in its title, it begins with the 386 CPU and even makes comparison to 286 and prior CPUs. TUP4 'builds' the P4 by beginning with the 386 and adding features over time. I found this approach helpful to explain why Intel has ended up with the architecture in the P4.

The book's descriptions tend to be thorough and detailed. For example, there are explanations of the state of every element of a CPU upon a system reset, bit-oriented descriptions of registers and memory structures, and electrical characteristics of components like the Front Side Bus.

TUP4 is also interesting because the author is not an Intel employee. This leaves him free to mention items like the fact that the original (and presumably existing) Pentium M CPU is based on the PIII core, and not the newer P4.

Reader should not ignore the additional 342 pages found on the book's CD-ROM. I found the first three chapters most interesting, as they describe processor problems and solutions (ch 1), register (ch 2) and instruction set (ch 3) evolution; the remainder covers aspects of the P6 core.

I have a few concerns with TUP4. First, the quality of most of the figures and diagrams needs to be improved. While legible, they look like they were pulled from slides used in the author's classes, and did not survive publication at high resolution. Second, I think the book could have been thinner. While not exactly a 'large font' book, I saw too much white space and repetition of material. The book had 89 pages (lxxxix) of introduction to handle the table of contents, etc! Third and most importantly, I did not get enough of an introduction to certain CPU concepts and elements. In a 1600+ page book, I would have put more tables and similar references on the CD-ROM, and more basic CPU hardware explanation in the text.

While I am not technically proficient enough in CPU design to critique the book's content, I found one remark odd. On p 209 the author states that a hypothetical system with 256 MB RAM would be 'ridiculously small,' and that it would be 'amazing' if an OS would occupy 250 MB or memory or less. Most consumer PCs ship with 128 MB RAM (admittedly too little in my opinion), so 256 MB is a good standard for modern Windows systems. I am not sure why the author selected his figures, for they do not seem representative of modern computing.

Overall, I strongly recommend anyone wanting to learn more about the IA-32 architecture first download and peruse Intel's three volumes. I am fairly sure those documents will answer your questions. If you want a more comparative discussion, with the 386, 486, Pentium, and later processors explained, give TUP4 a look. For future editions, I would pare the book down by moving more reference material to the CD-ROM, and call the book 'Abridged.'

Rating:
Summary: Possibly a definitive manual of the P4?
Review: Well should the title say Unabridged. It would not go nicely for you to drop this 1633 page tome on your feet!

The book is aimed squarely at a traditional electrical engineering hardware person. Who hopefully already has extensive experience in designing a chipset or motherboard around a microprocessor. Where, needless to say, it would be even more advantageous if that cpu was an earlier Pentium or x86.

A lot of familiar type material here. The details are specific to this latest cpu, of course. But you should been well conversant with state transition diagrams for various pins on a chip, as functions of input signals on other pins. The book also has many details like setup and hold time requirements for how long a signal must be stable at a pin, relative to some other parameter, like the edge of a clock cycle. These ideas have been around for decades. So it is nice that what you might have learnt in the 70s and 80s are still applicable here, albeit at much higher clock speeds.

The book is a reference manual, in case you haven't figured that out already. I cannot imagine someone reading this cover to cover. It also shows that the company, Mindshare, that authored the book (and similar others), has chosen to reside in a very specialised niche. Where the sheer complexity may deter competition.