1.1.2 TYPES OF PROCESSOR

Question 1

Complex Instruction Set Computers (CISC)

Answer 1

Large instruction set. Try and accomplish tasks in as few lines of assembly code as possible. Instructions are build into the hardware. Largely replaced by RISC designs. Used more in microcontrollers and embedded systems.

Question 2

Reduced Instruction Set Computers (RISC)

Answer 2

Small instruction set. Each instruction is approximately one line of machine code and takes one clock cycle.

Question 3

RISC vs CISC compiler comparison

Answer 3

RISC: The compiler has to do more work to translate high level code into machine code.

CISC: The compiler has less work to do to translate high level code into machine code.

Question 4

RISC vs CISC RAM comparison

Answer 4

RISC: More RAM is required to store the code.

CISC: Less RAM is required since code is shorter.

Question 5

RISC vs CISC instruction possibilities

Answer 5

RISC: Pipelining is possible since each instruction takes one clock cycle.

CISC: Many specialized instructions are made even though only a few of them are user

Question 6

Graphics Processing Unit (GPU)

Answer 6

A GPU is a co-processor which has lots of independent processors working in parallel making it very efficient at tasks such as image processing, and machine learning.

Question 7

Multi-core and Parallel systems

Answer 7

Multicore CPUs have multiple independent cores that can complete instructions separately which results in higher performance. Parallel systems accomplish a similar task however instead of requiring multiple cores they can complete tasks with a single core, by using threading. Overall, in larger projects, multi-core systems perform better than parallel systems.