Factors affecting processor's performance

Question 1

What are the 3 main factor affecting the processor’s performance

Answer 1

number of cores
the amount and type of cache
the clock speed

Question 2

Each CPU operations start as the clock switch from…

Answer 2

0 to 1

Question 3

The CPU cannot perform operations faster than the..

Answer 3

the time a clock cycle takes to complete

Question 4

A clock cycle is the time it takes to switch…

Answer 4

from 0 to 1 and back to 0

Question 5

One clock cycle per second

Answer 5

1Hz

Question 6

What’s the reason behind having one or multiple unsued cores when an instruction being executed

Answer 6

Some softwares may not be able to take the full advantage of both or multiple processors

Question 7

Define cache

Answer 7

a small amount of very expensive and very fast memory inside the CPU that stores recent instructions so that the CPU can acess them from them as it is quicker if needed be. As cache fills up, unused data or instructions are replaced with more recent ones.

Question 8

What does pipelining allows a CPU to do

Answer 8

To do multiple steps of the FDE cycle simultaneously.

Question 9

What does pipelining improves ?

Answer 9

performance of the processor

Question 10

Processor pipelining can be divided into..

Answer 10

an arithmetic pipeline

and an instruction pipeline

Question 11

The arithmetic pipeline represents the parts of an arithmetic operations that can be..

Answer 11

broken down and overlapped as they are performed

Question 12

The instruction pipeline consistis of the stages in..

Answer 12

which an instruction is moved through the processor

Question 13

Levels of cache

Answer 13

LEVEL 1 CACHE: 2-64KB, very fast with small capacity
LEVEL 2 CACHE: 256KB - 2MB, realtively fats and medium size capacity
LEVEL 3 CACHE: much larger and slower

Question 14

Describe the Von Neumann Architecture

Answer 14

This architecture includes the basic components of the computer and processor (single CU, ALU, registers and memory units) in which a shared memory and shared data bus is used for both data and instructions.

Von Neumann architecture is built on the stored program concept.

Question 15

Describe the Harvard architecture

Answer 15

Harvard architecture has physically separate memories for instructions and data, more commonly used with embedded processors. This is useful for when memories have different characteristics, i.e. instructions may be read only, while data may be read-write.

This also allows you to optimise the size of individual memory cells and their buses depending on your needs, i.e. the instruction memory can be designed to be larger so a larger word size can be used for instructions.

Question 16

Describe the Harvard architecture

Answer 16

Harvard architecture has physically separate memories for instructions and data, more commonly used with embedded processors. This is useful for when memories have different characteristics, i.e. instructions may be read only, while data may be read-write.

This also allows you to optimise the size of individual memory cells and their buses depending on your needs, i.e. the instruction memory can be designed to be larger so a larger word size can be used for instructions.

Question 17

Pros of using Von Neumann architecture

Answer 17

Programs can be optimised in size,

and it is cheaper to developed as the CU is easier to design

Question 18

Pros of using Havard architecture

Answer 18

Quicker execution time as data and instructions can be fetched in parallel,
and memories can be different sizes, which can make more efficient use of space

Question 19

Talk about Contemporary processors

Answer 19

Contemporary processors use a combination of Harvard and Von Neumann architecture.

Von Neumann is used when working with data and instructions in main memory, but uses

Harvard architecture to divide the cache into instruction cache and data cache