Brainscape's Knowledge GenomeTM

Browse over 1 million classes created by top students, professors, publishers, and experts.


See full index

C952 Computer Architecture > CHAPTER 2: Computer Abstract / Tech > Flashcards

CHAPTER 2: Computer Abstract / Tech Flashcards

1
Q

personal computer (PC)

A

A computer designed for use by an individual, usually incorporating a graphics display, a keyboard, and a mouse

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
2
Q

server

A

A computer used for running larger programs for multiple users, often simultaneously, and typically accessed only via a network

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
3
Q

supercomputer

A
  1. A class of computers with the highest performance and cost
  2. They are configured as servers
  3. Typically cost tens to hundreds of millions of dollars
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
4
Q

embedded computer

A

A computer inside another device either running:

  1. One predetermined application
  2. A collection of software
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
5
Q

personal mobile devices (PMD)

A

small wireless devices to connect to the Internet; they rely on batteries for power, and software is installed by downloading apps. Conventional examples are smart phones and tablets

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
6
Q

cloud computing? 2

A
  1. large collections of servers that provide services over the Internet
  2. Some providers rent dynamically, but the numbers of servers as an utility may vary
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
7
Q

Software as a Service (SaaS)

A
  1. delivers software and data as a service over the Internet
  2. usually runs service through a thin program such as a browser that runs on local client devices. Instead of binary code that must be installed, and runs wholly on that device.
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
8
Q

multicore microprocessor

A

microprocessor containing multiple processors (“cores”) in a single integrated circuit

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
9
Q

acroynm

A

word constructed by taking the initial letters of a string of words. For example: RAM is an acronym for Random Access Memory, and CPU is an acronym for Central Processing Unit

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
10
Q

terabyte (TB)

A
  1. 1,000 gigabytes (GB) or one trillion bytes
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
11
Q

tebibyte (TiB)

A

240 bytes, defining terabyte (TB) to mean 1012 bytes.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
12
Q

systems software

A

software that provides services that are commonly useful, including operating systems, compilers, loaders, and assemblers

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
13
Q

operating system

A

A supervising program that manages the resources of a computer for the benefit of the programs that run on that computer

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
14
Q

compiler

A

program that translates high-level language statements into assembly language statements

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
15
Q

binary digit (bit)

A

one of the two numbers in base 2 (0 or 1) that are the components of information

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
16
Q

instruction

A

command that computer hardware understands and obeys

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
17
Q

assembly

A

program that translates a symbolic version of instructions into the binary version

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
18
Q

assembly language

A

symbolic representation of machine instructions

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
19
Q

machine language

A

binary representation of machine instructions

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
20
Q

high-level programming language

A
  1. portable language such as C, C++, Java, or Visual Basic.
  2. Composed of words and algebraic notation that can be translated by a compiler into assembly language
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
21
Q

input device

A

mechanism through which the computer is fed information, such as a keyboard

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
22
Q

output device

A

mechanism that conveys the result of a computation to a user, such as a display, or to another computer

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
23
Q

consumer-oriented embedded applications

A
  • dependability of these applications should be achieved through simplicity
  • focusing on one core function and making sure it works flawlessly
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
24
Q

touchscreen

A

people are electrical conductors, if an insulator like glass is covered with a transparent conductor, touching distorts the electrostatic field of the screen, which results in a change in capacitance

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
25
Q

input device

A

mechanism through which the computer is fed information, such as a keyboard

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
26
Q

output device

A

mechanism that conveys the result of a computation to a user, such as a display, or to another computer

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
27
Q

liquid crystal display (LCD)

A

display technology using a thin layer of liquid polymers that can be used to transmit or block light according to whether a charge is applied

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
28
Q

active matrix display

A

liquid crystal display using a transistor to control the transmission of light at each individual pixel

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
29
Q

pixel

A

smallest individual picture element. Screens are composed of hundreds of thousands to millions of pixels, organized in a matrix

30
Q

integrated circuit (chip)

A

device combining dozens to millions of transistors

31
Q

central processor unit (CPU)

A

active part of the computer, which contains the datapath and control and which adds numbers, tests numbers, signals I/O devices to activate, and so on

32
Q

datapath

A

component of the processor that performs arithmetic operations

33
Q

memory

A

storage area in which programs are kept when they are running and that contains the data needed by the running programs

34
Q

dynamic random access memory (DRAM)

A

memory built as an integrated circuit; it provides random access to any location. Access times are 50 nanoseconds and cost per gigabyte in 2012 was $5 to $10

35
Q

cache memory

A

small, fast memory that acts as a buffer for a slower, larger memory

36
Q

static random access memory (SRAM)

A

memory built as an integrated circuit, but faster and less dense than DRAM

37
Q

instruction set architecture (architecture)

A
  • abstract interface between the hardware and the lowest-level software that encompasses all the information necessary to write a machine language program that will run correctly, including instructions, registers, memory access, I/O, and so on
  • most important example of abstraction
38
Q

application binary interface (ABI)

A

user portion of the instruction set plus the operating system interfaces used by application programmers. It defines a standard for binary portability across computers

39
Q

implementation

A

Hardware that obeys the architecture abstraction

40
Q

volatile memory

A

Storage, such as DRAM, that retains data only if it is receiving power

41
Q

nonvolatile memory

A

form of memory that retains data even in the absence of a power source and that is used to store programs between runs. A DVD disk is nonvolatile

42
Q

main memory (primary memory)

A

memory used to hold programs while they are running; typically consists of DRAM in today’s computers.

43
Q

secondary memory

A

nonvolatile memory used to store programs and data between runs; typically consists of flash memory in PMDs and magnetic disks in servers

44
Q

magnetic disk (hard disk)

A

form of nonvolatile secondary memory composed of rotating platters coated with a magnetic recording material. Because they are rotating mechanical devices, access times are about 5 to 20 milliseconds and cost per gigabyte in 2012 was $0.05 to $0.10

45
Q

flash memory

A

nonvolatile semiconductor memory. It is cheaper and slower than DRAM but more expensive per bit and faster than magnetic disks. Access times are about 5 to 50 microseconds and cost per gigabyte in 2012 was $0.75 to $1.00

46
Q

transistor

A

on/off switch controlled by an electric signal

47
Q

Very large-scale integrated (VLSI) circuit

A

device containing hundreds of thousands to millions of transistors

48
Q

wafer

A

slice from a silicon ingot no more than 0.1 inches thick, used to create chips

49
Q

defect

A

microscopic flaw in a wafer or in patterning steps that can result in the failure of the die containing that defect

50
Q

die

A

individual rectangular sections that are cut from a wafer, more informally known as chips

51
Q

yield

A

percentage of good dies from the total number of dies on the wafer

52
Q

response time (execution time)

A

total time required for the computer to complete a task, including disk accesses, memory accesses, I/O activities, operating system overhead, CPU execution time, and so on

53
Q

throughput (bandwidth)

A

measure of performance, it is the number of tasks completed per unit time

54
Q

performance

A

the inverse of execution time

55
Q

CPU execution time

A
  • actual time the CPU spends computing for a specific task
  • only valid and unimpeachable measure of performance
56
Q

User CPU time

A

CPU time spent in a program itself

57
Q

system CPU time

A

CPU time spent in the operating system performing tasks on behalf of the program

58
Q

clock cycle (tick, clock tick, clock period, clock, or cycle)

A

time for one clock period, usually of the processor clock, which runs at a constant rate

59
Q

clock period

A

length of each clock cycle

60
Q

clock cycles per instruction (CPI)

A

average number of clock cycles per instruction for a program or program fragment

61
Q

instruction count

A

number of instructions executed by the program

62
Q

instruction mix

A

measure of the dynamic frequency of instructions across one or many programs

63
Q

workload

A

set of programs run on a computer that is either the actual collection of applications run by a user or constructed from real programs to approximate such a mix. A typical workload specifies both the programs and the relative frequencies

64
Q

benchmark

A

program selected for use in comparing computer performance

65
Q

pitfall: improvement is affected by how much time a feature is used

A

Expecting the improvement of one aspect of a computer to increase overall performance by an amount proportional to the size of the improvement

66
Q

amdahl’s law

A

rule stating that the performance enhancement possible with a given improvement is limited by the amount that the improved feature is used. It is a quantitative version of the law of diminishing returns

67
Q

fallacy: Computers at low utilization use little power

A

non energy-proportional computing

68
Q

fallacy: Designing for performance and designing for energy efficiency are unrelated goals

A

it is often the case that hardware or software optimizations that take less time save energy overall even if the optimization takes a bit more energy when it is used

69
Q

pitfall: Using a subset of the performance equation as a performance metric

A
  • nearly all proposed alternatives to the use of time as the performance metric have led eventually to misleading claims, distorted results, or incorrect interpretations
  • common mistake is to use only two of the three factors to compare performance
70
Q

million instructions per second (MIPS)

A
  • measurement of program execution speed based on the number of millions of instructions. MIPS is computed as the instruction count divided by the product of the execution time and 106
  • MIPS = instruction count/(execution time x 10^6)
  • cannot compare computers with different instruction sets using MIPS
  • if a new program executes more instructions but each instruction is faster, MIPS can vary independently from performance
  • varies between programs on the same computer; thus, a computer cannot have a single MIPS rating

C952 Computer Architecture (7 decks)

Brainscape helps you reach your goals faster, through stronger study habits.
© 2024 Bold Learning Solutions. Terms and Conditions