The differences between and uses of CISC and RISC processors.

Question 1

What does RISC stand for?

Answer 1

Reduced Instruction Set Computers

Question 2

What is RISC?

Answer 2

• Small instruction set

- Each instruction is approximately one line of machine code and takes one clock cycle

Question 3

What does CISC stand for?

Answer 3

Complex Instruction Set Computers

Question 4

What is CISC?

Answer 4

• Large instruction set
• Aim is to try and accomplish tasks in as few lines of assembly code as possible
• Built into the hardware

Question 5

One advantage of RISC compared to CISC

Answer 5

Pipelining is possible since each instruction takes one clock cycle

Question 6

One advantage of CISC compared to RISC

Answer 6

Less RAM is required since code is shorter

Question 7

Differences between CISC and RISC

Answer 7

• CISC is more complex / RISC is simpler
• RISC takes one machine cycle / CISC takes many cycles to complete one instruction
• RISC fixed number of bytes / CISC variable number