1.1.2 TYPES OF PROCESSOR

Question 1

what does RISC mean?

Answer 1

reduced instruction set computer

Question 2

what does CISC mean?

Answer 2

complex instruction set computer

Question 3

what are the properties of RISC?

Answer 3

• small instruction set
• each instruction is one line of machine code
• used in everyday devices

Question 4

what are the properties of CISC?

Answer 4

• a large instruction set
• instructions are built into hardware
• used in embedded systems and microprocessors

Question 5

what are the benefits of RISC processors?

Answer 5

pipelining is possible since each instruction takes on one clock cycle

Question 6

what are the benefits of CISC processors?

Answer 6

• compilers have to do less work

- they require less RAM since instructions are smaller

Question 7

what is a graphics processing unit ?

Answer 7

a co-processor made up of lots of independent parallel processors

Question 8

what are GPUs used for now?

Answer 8

GPUs are used for image processing and machine learning

Question 9

what are multi-core systems?

Answer 9

systems where there are multiple cores that separate fetch-execute cycles

Question 10

what are parallel systems ?

Answer 10

systems where multiple instructions can be completed at any given time, doesn’t require multiple cores, it can use threading and pipelining instead