This is a combination assignment and final exam preparation guide. As mentioned in class on 12/8, we don't have enough class meetings to cover all the material we "should" cover. So we'll skip some topics, cover some others more lightly that I'd like, and as usual will cover some material differently from the way it's done in the book. But most importantly, you are going to have to master some of the material on the final exam without the "benefit" of listening to me talk about it in class.
In addition to all of Chapter 6, you need to study the following parts of the textbook:
Chapter 7. You need to understand the principles of the Memory Hierarchy (pp 243-244). Study section 7.2; you need to understand the difference between static and dynamic RAM, how SRAM is implemented using gates and flip-flops. Use Section 7.3 to extend your understanding of Section 7.2 Figures 7-2 and 7-4 are important. You should already know the material in Section 7.5 (ROM). Section 7.6 introduces cache memory. You are responsible for all the material in this section through section 7.6.6, which ends on page 267. Section 7.6.5 is particularly important, but you need to know the material from earlier in section 7.6 to understand it.
Answer Problems 7.7, 7.8, 7.9, and 7.10.
Chapter 8. Read through section 8.3.3 (Direct Memory Access), which ends on page 313. In addition, study the UART Web Page.
There are many excellent Web Sites that cover the topics in Chapters 7 and 8. If you Google "northbridge southbridge" you can get started with some lecture notes that are available. And you will soon find links to sites that either point to other sites, or sites with real content. For example:
A problem with these links is that some of their reviews of the "latest and greatest" technology were written a couple of years ago and hence are no longer current. So as you read you need to keep your brain in gear and try to extract basic information and principles about how things work rather than pay too much attention about which particular device is the best of the lot.
Exercises: I'll post a copy of last semester's final exam, which has example questions.
The Blackboard Discussion Board has a special area set up discussions related to the final exam. I encourage you to use it! (But don't forget, Blackboard will be down Friday the 12th and possibly Saturday the 13th, so plan to work around that.)