1.2 Types Of Processor

Question 1

What are the 2 types of instruction sets?

Answer 1

RISC reduced instruction set computers

CISC complex instruction set computers

Question 2

What are the features of RISC processors?

Answer 2

small instruction set

each instruction is approximately 1 line of machine code

Question 3

What are the features of CISC processors?

Answer 3

large instruction set

aim to accomplish tasks in as few lines of code as possible

instructions are built into hardware

used more in embedded systems

Question 4

What are the pros and cons of RISC?

Answer 4

compiler has to do more work to translate high level code to machine code

more RAM required

pipelining is possible since each instruction takes one clock cycle

less complex circuitry required so hardware is cheaper

Question 5

What are the pros and cons of CISC?

Answer 5

compiler has less work to translate high level code to machine code

less RAM required

many specialised instructions are made but few of them are used in each program

less power efficient so requires a larger battery and better cooling

Question 6

What are multi-core CPUs?

Answer 6

Processors that contain multiple cores that can each carry out their own fde cycles in parallel.

Question 7

What are parallel systems?

Answer 7

Systems that achieve a similar task to multi-core systems but only using 1 core through threading.

Question 8

What does GPU stand for?

Answer 8

graphics processing unit

Question 9

What is a GPU?

Answer 9

A device that contains lots of independent processors that work in parallel making it very efficient for completing repetitive tasks such as image processing and machine learning.

Question 10

What is a coprocessor?

Answer 10

A secondary processor designed to supplement the activities of the CPU. e.g. a GPU