YEAR 1 CO1 WEEK 7 TYPES OF PROCESSORS Flashcards
What does RISC stand for and what does it do?
Reduced Instruction Set Computer.
Has more instructions, but reduces the number of cycles that instruction takes to perform.
What does CISC stand for and what does it do?
Complex Instruction Set Computer.
Tries to reduce number of instructions program has by combining many simple instructions into single complex one
State the three types of Parallel Processing.
Pipelining
Array Processing
Multi-Core
What is Pipelining?
This is where this cycle is staggered into multiple hardware processing paths within the CPU called a ‘pipeline’.
What is Array Processing?
You can arrange data into an array (2D array).
Has a number of ALUs that allow all elements of an array to be processed at same time.
What is meant by Multiple Processors?
Next level of Parallel Processing is to have multiple instructions acting upon multiple data sets.
Achieved by having number of CPUs applied to single problem, with each CPU carrying out part of overall problem.
Disadvantages of Parallel Processing.
Only works on certain types of data which do not rely on previous operation.
Often expensive on hardware side.
Multiple processing blocks needed (applies to all three methods.)
Advantages of Parallel Processing.
Makes maximum use of CPU (pipelining).
Faster when handling large amounts of data, each data set requiring the same processing (array + multi core method).
Not limited by bus transfer rate.
What is a Co Processor?
Designed to carry out floating point calculations extremely fast and works with CPU on mother board.
When CPU has a task like this sent to Co processor and does something else until its done.
State Advantages and Disadvantages of Co Processor.
Calculations done much faster.
More expensive, requires more motherboard space and takes more power.
Has limited range of function.
What is a GPU and state its function.
A Graphics Processing Unit which is designed to handle graphics and video much faster than the CPU itself.
Has instruction sets which relate specifically to graphics processing and have thousands of cores
What happens when application makes intense use of graphics or video?
CPU sends these tasks to GPU and continues to process other tasks.
Many graphics tasks run in parallel di GPU issues single instruction act upon many pixels at same time.
State issues with GPU’s.
A
Graphics cards can be expensive.
Do not improve CPU performance on all tasks, only ones related to graphics and videos.
Uses a lot of power which might mean computer needs to be fitted with a more powerful power supply.
As graphics cards use lots of power need cooling fan which can be very noisy.
Give some features of CISC explained.
MUL 1045,1067
This reduces amount of work compiler has to do. As instructions very high level and requires little translation into machine code.
As instructions very short only small amount of RAM required.
Clock speed slightly slower as CPU has to do more work in single instruction.
Give some features of RISC explained.
Complier has lot more work to do translating high level language into machine code.
More RAM needed to store machine code instructions.
