New design architectures in computer systems have surpassed industry expectations. Limits, which were once thought of as fundamental, have now been broken. Digital Systems and Applications details these innovations in systems design as well as cutting-edge applications that are emerging to take advantage of the fields increasingly sophisticated capabilities. This book features new chapters on parallelizing iterative heuristics, stream and wireless processors, and lightweight embedded systems. This fundamental text-- Provides a clear focus on computer systems, architecture, and applications Takes a top-level view of system organization before moving on to architectural and organizational concepts such as superscalar and vector processor, VLIW architecture, as well as new trends in multithreading and multiprocessing. includes an entire section dedicated to embedded systems and their applications Discusses topics such as digital signal processing applications, circuit implementation aspects, parallel I/O algorithms, and operating systems Concludes with a look at new and future directions in computing Features articles that describe diverse aspects of computer usage and potentials for use Details implementation and performance-enhancing techniques such as branch prediction, register renaming, and virtual memory Includes a section on new directions in computing and their penetration into many new fields and aspects of our daily lives