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Inside the Machine explains how microprocessors operate -- what they do, and how they do it. Written by the co-founder of the highly respected Ars Technica site, the book begins with the fundamentals of computing, defining what a computer is and using analogies, numerous 4-color diagrams, and clear explanations to communicate the concepts that form the basis of modern computing. After discussing computers in the abstract, the book goes on to cover specific microprocessors, discussing in detail how they work and how they differ. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (18)

A nice illustration to how computers works
Inside the machine by Jon Stokes is a wonderful introductory treatment of computer and microprocessor architecture. Author started off with microprocessor concept as simple computing and calculating machine.Next he gradually moved into advanced topic such as pipelining and superscalar execution. Then he discusses Intel Pentium and Pentium architecture and PowerPC processor followed by comparison between Intel Pentium 4 and Motorola G4E. Different caching scheme are discussed towards the end of the book. The book closes with discussion of Intel latest line of processor such as Pentium M, Core Duo and Core 2 Duo.

Chapter 1: Basic Computing Concept

In this chapter, heart of computer--microprocessor--is discussed with a simple file-clerk model. Basically, microprocessor consists of a CPU, some storage, data and instruction bus. The author put a great stress on CPU functionality as a device which read, modify and write data. So a computer is like a file clerk who sits at his desk all day waiting for messages from his boss. Eventually, boss send a message for him to perform a task or calculation and where to get information from his personal file cabinet. So clerk first get the number, then perform the required task or calculation and finally put the results back in his file cabinet. I think the above analogy is very power to understanding the CPU role in modern computing. In essence, CPU functionality is very simple and every other system in the computer supports the CPU to accomplish this very task of read, modify and write task endlessly.

Chapter 2: The Mechanics of Program Execution

This chapter introduces the machine language, the programming model, ISA (Instruction Set Architecture), branch instruction and fetch-execute loop. Machine language structure such as opcodes, binary encoding of arithmetic and memory access instruction is discussed for hypothetical machine DLW-1. Basically, DLW-1 has four simple instructions: add, sub, load, store. The author shows binary encoding of these instructions. For example, the format for the machine language encoding of a register-type arithmetic instruction has following format: mode (1bit), opcode (2 bits), source1 (2 bits), source 2 (2 bits), destination (2 bits) and bit 10 to 15 are all zeros. Branch and conditional instructions are covered toward the end. This chapter actually gets into mechanics of how computer represent data and instruction and work toward the goal of the computer to actually read, modify and write data.

Chapter 3: Pipelined Execution

Pipelining is a technique that computers use to speed up the execution of the program. Pipeline is explained with a simple yet powerful SUV factory analogy. Five stages of this supposed factory are presented as: chassis construction, engine placement, doors and covering mounting, wheel assembly and paint. The idea is that each stage takes an hour to finish so that while one SUV is going through the pipeline other workers are not doing anything. In order to speed up the process, a new SUV can be sent when the first SUV is in the second stage; therefore, it will speed up the process and factory output. Because of this simple analogy, I finally understand how the pipelining works in the computer system. Pipeline stalls are also discussed toward the end of the chapter because of that pipeline's average instruction throughput reduces.

Chapter 4: Superscalar Execution

This chapter continues the theme from the last chapter to improve the efficiency of microprocessor and introduces another ALU on the chip. As an example, DLW-1 is extended to DLW-2; it has now two ALU, so it's able to execute two arithmetic instructions in parallel, it's called two-way superscalar. The instruction "Decode" is relabeled as "Decode/Dispatch". Superscalar computing allows a microprocessor to increase the number of instruction per clock and can have multiple instructions write stage on each clock cycle. Toward the end of the chapter various challenges to superscalar design are discussed. Conditions under which two arithmetic instructions cannot be safely dispatch in parallel for simultaneous execution are called hazards. There are three different categories: data hazards, structure hazard and control hazards. Overall, this chapter provided good overview of pipelining and superscalar deign and it's challenges to implement them in microprocessors.

Chapter 5: The Intel Pentium and Pentium Pro

In the chapter, the focus is on the Intel Pentium architecture and start of first original Pentium which was introduced in 1993. It has two integer ALUs and a floating point ALU. It also introduces the level 1 cache and multiple pipelines which shares four stages in common: fetch, decode-1, decode-2 and write. Author then introduces Pentium pro, Pentium II and Pentium III. They were introduced in 1995, 1997, and 1999 respectively. One of key difference between Pentium pro and other processor was location of L2 cache. Pentium pro has L2 cache off die but Pentium II and Pentium III supported caches on die. Overall this chapter provides the good architectural support and comparison between Intel microprocessors and helped me to learn how they actually work.

Chapter 6: Power PC Processors

The focus on this chapter is origin and development of popular family of microprocessor: PowerPC. The 600 series was first in the line and was introduced in 1994. It has cache size of 32KB. It has classics four-stage RISC integer pipeline: fetch, decode/dispatch, execute and write-back. Furthermore it has much simpler front-end than its counterpart x86 at that time.The PowerPC 700 series also known as G3 was introduced 1997. It has cache sizes of 64KB split L1 and dedicated 1MB L2, which leads to its great success. It eventually got widespread into embedded devices and across Apple's entire product line. Then PowerPC 7400 also known as G4 introduce in 1999. It has cache of 64KB split L1 and 2MB L2 supported via on-chip tags. Consequently, it supported compelling multimedia and multiprocessor performance. Overall this chapter has good introduction of PowerPC lines of early processor, their historical development and architecture.

Chapter 7 and 8: Intel Pentium 4 vs. Motorola G4e

Pentium 4 was introduced in 2000, and it was the first major new architecture from Intel since the Pentium Pro while Motorola G4e was introduced in 2001. The two chapters built on last chapters to examine the two microprocessors side by side.

The main difference between two microprocessors technology was pipelining depth which also show the differences of design philosophy and goals of the two processors. In simple term, G4e approach of pipelining was wide and shallow. It has more functional unit in parallel in its back end. Each of G4e execution units has fairly short pipeline, so the instructions take very few cycles to move through and finish executing. While Pentium 4 takes a narrow and deep approach to moving through the instruction stream. Deep pipelining mean that it can hold and work on quite a few instructions at once and it pushes them through its narrower back end at higher rate.

Architectural differences between two processors are also discussed in great length with clearly marked diagrams. Integer units and floating points units explained for two processors. Because of Pentium narrow and deep approach, design is much more suited to floating point applications. One of the key technology is vector execution units on which both G4e and Pentium 4 rely on this for multimedia applications. Overall these two chapters explained the two processors very well and highlighted their differences in a easy to understand manner.

Chapter 9: 64 bit computing

In the chapter, concept of 64 bit computing explained and why we may use them. First of all 64 bit processor means that the processor has general purpose registers that can stores 64-bit numbers. This way ALU and register can handle more possible integer values and more possible addresses. In the nutshell, this will improve the quality of various CAD tools and 3D rendering programs such as weather and scientific simulations, 3D games. But 64-bit comes with a price, that it can squeeze the useful data out of the cache and degrade performance because now the memory address value are twice as large and they take up twice as much cache space.

Chapter 10: IBM's PowerPC 970

This chapter discusses latest line of G5 PowerPC processor which is heart of Apple computers. It has extremely wide back end and 14-stage integer pipeline that built for speed. It instruction architecture is similar to G4e, but it can have a 200 instructions on-chip in various stages on execution as compared with G4e 16 instructions and Pentium 4's 126 instruction. On the whole, this chapter provides the in-depth details of the 970 architecture and provided comparison with Pentium 4 and G4e.

Chapter 11: Understanding Caching and Performance

This chapter introduces a caching in a gentle way. CPU clocks cycles has faster than the memory and bus clock cycles and a great deal of CPU clock cycles has to be wasted in order to retrieve data from the memory. In order to address this problem, cache was introduced as early as first processor came out. Analogy with the warehouse is given as an explanation of cache, and it was a key for me to really understanding the cache concepts. Level 1 cache has an access time of 2-8 ns and consists of SRAM. Similarly, Level 2 cache has an access time of 5-12ns and consists of SRAM as well. When compared with the main memory and hard disk, they have access time of 10-60ns and 3ms-10ms respectively. Cache spatial and temporal locality is discussed in great length. Different Mapping schemes such as fully associative mapping and direct mapping are explained very clearly with simple diagrams. It is very helpful for people who are learning about cache mappings first time.

Chapter 12: Pentium M, Core Duo and Core 2 Duo.

In this chapter, Intel latest high performance and low power consumption processor Core Duo discussed. Chip multiprocessing (CMP) is where two or more processor cores are integrated onto the same silicon die and this commonly called dual-core processor. The focus of these architectures is from single-threaded performance to multithreaded performance.The Intel Core 2 Duo was introduced in 2006 and it has L1 cache of 32KB instruction and 32KB of data. L2 cache is either 2MB or 4MB. It has built in support for 64 bit. The number of improvements has been added to Core Duo processors such as more decoding logic, bigger execution hardware and memory buffer space. Overall, this chapter provided a very good in-depth knowledge of Core 2 processors and it is a must read for anyone interested in the latest development in microprocessors.

Conclusion:

This book is excellent for every level of reader from beginners to engineers with many years of experience and a technical background. Overall, this book had done a very great job explaining microprocessor architectures from beginning to latest Intel Core 2 Duo processors. I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone who has any interest how computers and microprocessors works.

Introductory text takes you from beginner to intermediary- and it is fun too!
I started with very limited understanding of computer architecture. What I had was a jumble of marketing terms I had picked up from reading popular PC magazines. This book helped me understand the basics of computer architecture, and quickly took me on a fun and insightful tour of major 32-bit and 64-bit architectures.
I have gained enough understanding from this book to move on to more quantitative treatments of processor design.

Very Good.
This book is very accessible.I came in with little knowledge of of a cpu works and came out with a lot more.It spends about half its time on simple theory or how a cpu works and the other half on showing how this was implemented in processors in the last three decades.

Great Intro to Microprocessor Architecture
Jon Stokes takes us on a journey through time, beginning with a trivial hypothetical processor, marching through the fundamental design decisions and trade-offs that microprocessor designers have made over the years with subsequent versions of their products.

Each major component of microprocessor architecture is described. Rarely does a book so perfectly describe a complex subject in simple and easy to understand terms. The book is full of excellent color illustrations that help drive the subject matter home.

In the introduction, Jon describes the book as an "introduction to computers that is intended to fill the gap that exists between classic but more challenging introductions to computer architecture...and the growing mass of works that are simply too basic for motivated non-specialist readers." That statement is spot on.

Topics covered include 'basic computing concepts', 'mechanics of program execution', 'pipelined execution', 'superscalar execution', '64-bit computing and X86-64' and 'caching and performance'. Processors covered include Intel (Pentium, Pentium Pro, Pentium 4, Pentium M, Core Duo, and Core 2 Duo) and Motorola (PowerPC 601, 603, 604, 604e, 750 aka G3, 7400 aka G4, G4E and 970 aka G5).

This book provides excellent, in-depth coverage of real-world microprocessor design. It earns top marks from me for its easy accessibility and high quality writing.

Very good introduction and overview
I liked the simplicity in the book. It is very easy to read and understand things written on it. I classify the book as introductory level in computer architecture giving an overview on the today's microprocessors. I would recommend it for those who want to learn something about microprocessors on their own, outside the class or want to read some brief details about the most current microprocessors (i.e. Core 2 Duo) or architectural comparison between different microarchitectures (i.e. IBM and Intel cores).

I don't think that the book is good as a text book for computer architecture. Instead I would recommend the Hennessy and Patterson "Computer Architecture - Quantitative Approach"

I personelly enjoyed reading this book.
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Product Description
Programming with Hyper-Threading Technology by Richard Gerber and Andrew Binstock helps software developers write high-performance multithreaded code while avoiding the common parallel programming issues that usually plague threaded programs.

This book highlights how software developers can use Hyper-Threading Technology to maximize processor throughput, efficiency, and parallelism. It is a practical, hands-on volume with immediately usable code examples that enable readers to quickly master the necessary building blocks.

Hyper-Threading Technology allows one physical processor to execute the instructions of multiple threads simultaneously, making the processor appear as two processors to the operating system. Likewise, Hyper-Threading Technology also enables a single processor to run two different programs at the same time without the delay of switching between them.

The companion CD-ROM contains threading and optimization tools, code samples, and extensive technical documentation on Hyper-Threading Technology. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Dishonest title, mediocre content
This book has nothing to do with hyperthreading whatsoever -- nor, as far as I can see, is it particularly specific to Intel processors. The real title would read something like "A fleet-footed and largely superfluous overview of the basics of multithreading usingWindows and Unix API". Had _that_ been the title, I would have given this book three stars -- it's superfluous, but that aside, OK. But the title is a complete lie, I'm sure intended to make the book look enticing (especially coming from Intel Press, where you'd expect (1) a book to have something to do with their hardware, and (2) an opportunity to take good info from "the horse's mouth" as it were). None of it here: one star (as the lowest I can give).

Good cross-platform introduction to threading
A very readable introduction to multi-threading on Windows, PThreads and OpenMP, with a slant towards their use on hyper-threading processors. This book isn't a reference work for any of the three methods, and it stops short on some topics where it would be nice for it to go a bit further, but it is a good introduction to all three platforms and general threading matters, and is far more readable than some other multi-threading books which are either written by people who cannot write, or are written by academics with no experience of writing professional quality code. So all in all, a very good place to start but realise that you will need reference material for the APIs too.

Comprehensive coverage--great detail
About the only source I have seen that 1) explains the details of HT, 2) relates HT to threading and discusses how to effectively use the latter with HT, and 3) how to optimize code intended for HT. The article the previous reviewer refers to touches only on the first point of these points. Optimization for HT is discussed only in this book that I know of.

poor
Not much about HT tech even it is by INTEL Press. Just VERY basic contents related to parallel programming.

The article on Intel Journal is much better and publicly available.

Save your money. ... Read more

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Image processing is continuing to develop into a more and more specialized area within the signal processing community. This book introduces the basic techniques for digital image processing and graphics and implements these techniques on Motorola's high-end DSP96002 Digital Signal Processor and its DSP9600 Application Development Tools. It explains, implements and demonstrates the Application Software Program (ASP), common image processing routines, and common graphics routines; and presents and demonstrates several hands-on projects. ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from Software Industry Report, published by Millin Publishing, Inc. on March 18, 2002. The length of the article is 721 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

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Title: PMC-SIERRA INTRODUCES 600 MHZ PIN-COMPATIBLE RM7000 64-BIT MIPS-BASED PROCESSORS.(Product Announcement)
Publication: Software Industry Report (Newsletter)
Date: March 18, 2002
Publisher: Millin Publishing, Inc.
Volume: 34Issue: 6Page: 8

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This digital document is an article from EDP Weekly's IT Monitor, published by Millin Publishing, Inc. on March 11, 2002. The length of the article is 428 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

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Title: CAST RELEASES 80186-COMPATIBLE PROCESSOR CORE.(Product Announcement)
Publication: EDP Weekly's IT Monitor (Magazine/Journal)
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Volume: 43Issue: 10Page: 7

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Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) processing is animportant component of many Digital Signal Processingsystems. We focus on applications requiringlarge-point FFTs (>1024), and where high-speed ofoperation has priority. We observe that theperformance of pipelined large-point FFTs is limiteddue to the physical size and access times of thenumerous First-in-First-out (FIFO) memories presentin the design. We demonstrate the advantage of using3D Integrated Circuit Technology to assist in memorybanks interleaving and stacking, for boosting theirperformance. Our 3DIC design methodologyinvolves commercial single-tier CAD tools with Perl,Python and TCL scripts to process their inputs andtie-up their single-tier outputs into a multi-tieredformat. The design experiments utilize the 3-tier, 3- metal layer, fully depleted Silicon-on-Insulator 3D0.18¿m manufacturing process from MIT Lincoln Labs. A design for an 8192-pt. FFT with 24 bits fixed-pointinputs (12-bits each of real and imaginary) isproposed which uses the Radix-2/4/8 Multi-path DelayCommutator Pipelined Architecture and which canoperate at 214 Mhz to give a new FFT set every 19¿s. ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from Federal Computer Market Report, published by Millin Publishing, Inc. on March 11, 2002. The length of the article is 428 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

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Title: CAST RELEASES 80186-COMPATIBLE PROCESSOR CORE.(Product Announcement)
Publication: Federal Computer Market Report (Newsletter)
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Publisher: Millin Publishing, Inc.
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This digital document is an article from EDP Weekly's IT Monitor, published by Millin Publishing, Inc. on October 2, 2000. The length of the article is 425 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

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Title: GENERAL MICRO SYSTEMS SHIPS THE FIRST GIGAHERTZ DUAL PROCESSOR VMEBUS AND COMPACTPCI CPU BOARDS.(Product Announcement)
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This digital document is an article from Display Development News, published by Business Communications Company, Inc. on April 1, 2001. The length of the article is 401 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

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Title: NEW TECHNOLOGY: Display Processors for XGA and SXGA Market.(Product Announcement)
Publication: Display Development News (Newsletter)
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Volume: 6Issue: 4Page: NA

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This digital document is an article from EDP Weekly's IT Monitor, published by Millin Publishing, Inc. on October 7, 2002. The length of the article is 542 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

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Title: IDT ships highest-density, highest-perf. IP co-processor in a 256Kx72 configuration.(Integrated Device Technology 256Kx72)
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This digital document is an article from EDP Weekly's IT Monitor, published by Millin Publishing, Inc. on December 24, 2001. The length of the article is 411 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

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Title: AMD STRENGTHENS LINEUP WITH NEW MOBILE AMD DURON PROCESSOR.
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Date: December 24, 2001
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Volume: 42Issue: 50Page: 2

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This digital document is an article from Software Industry Report, published by Millin Publishing, Inc. on July 22, 2002. The length of the article is 2347 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

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Title: AMD's newest mobile processor delivers exceptional notebook PC performance.(AMD Athlon XP processor 1800+)(Product Announcement)
Publication: Software Industry Report (Newsletter)
Date: July 22, 2002
Publisher: Millin Publishing, Inc.
Volume: 34Issue: 14Page: 8

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High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The UAD-1 is a PCI card with an onboard media processor sold by Universal Audio, designed to allow audio plug-ins to be used without using the host computer's CPU to process effects. This enables to user to utilize accurate, but processor-intensive, reverbs, eq's, compressors, limiters, and the like in real time. A PCI card manufactured by Cambridge Audioworks. It has an MPACT 2 processor which is a 125 MHz, graphics, audio and video media processor, used primarily for AGP graphics cards and hardware DVD decoding in 1997. The 3d functions are hard-wired on the chip. Xenon Microsystems (later named Chromatic Research) Chromatic Mpact 2 Video Adapter. Chromatic Research was acquired by ATI Technologies, November 1998. ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from Software Industry Report, published by Millin Publishing, Inc. on January 22, 2001. The length of the article is 481 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

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Title: AMD ANNOUNCES MOBILE AMD DURON PROCESSOR, FIRST 7TH GEN PROCESSOR FOR NOTEBOOK PCS.(Product Announcement)
Publication: Software Industry Report (Newsletter)
Date: January 22, 2001
Publisher: Millin Publishing, Inc.
Volume: 33Issue: 2Page: 3

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Nowadays hi-tech secure products need more services and more security. Furthermore the corresponding market is now oriented towards more flexibility. In this thesis we propose as novel solution a Multi-algorithm Cryptographic Co-processor called Celator. Celator is able to encrypt or decrypt data blocks using private key encryption algorithms such as Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) or Data Encryption Standard (DES). Moreover Celator allows condensing data using the Secure Hash Algorithms (SHA). These algorithms are frequently implemented in hi-tech secure products in software or in hardware mode. Celator belongs to the class of the flexible hardware implementations, and allows an user implementing its own cryptographic algorithm under specific conditions. Celator architecture is based on a 4x4 Processing Elements (PE) systolic array, a Controller with a Finite State Machine (FSM) and a local memory. Data are encrypted or decrypted by the PE array. This thesis presents Celator architecture, as well as its AES, DES, and SHA basic operations. Celator performances are then given and compared to other securitycircuits. ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from PC Business Products, published by Worldwide Videotex on March 1, 2000. The length of the article is 493 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

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Title: GENESIS MICROCHIP REDUCES LCD MONITOR COST.(the gmZAN1 processor for liquid-crystal displays)(Product Announcement)
Publication: PC Business Products (Newsletter)
Date: March 1, 2000
Publisher: Worldwide Videotex
Volume: 12Issue: 3Page: NA

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This book demonstrates the implementation of animproved adaptive Wiener filter on Texas InstrumentsTMS 320C6713 DSK board. A performance comparison ofan improved adaptive Wiener filter with Lee'sadaptive Wiener filter is illustrated. the profileparameters of the auto-code generated by the RealTime workshop for the Simulink model of LMS filteron TI C6713 DSK is compared with the Cimplementationof LMS filter on C6713. A LabVIEW model of adaptivenoise cancellation based on an improved adaptiveWiener filter is implemented on C6713 using TIDSPTest Integration Tool kit. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

useless
I have returned this book.

I was really disappointed by it. All contents could be googled. ... Read more