Computer System Design Overview

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Questions and Answers

What is one of the types of adders used in computer organization?

Half Adder

Carry Save Adder (correct)

Ripple Carry Adder

Binary Adder

Which invention is considered the first electronic computer?

ENIAC (correct)

Analytical Engine

Pascaline

Babbage Engine

Which scale of integration represents the current era in computing?

Medium Scale Integration

Ultra Large Scale Integration (correct)

Small Scale Integration

Large Scale Integration

What was a primary mechanical component used in early computing machines?

Relays Signup and view all the answers

Who is credited with the design of the first automatic computing engine?

Charles Babbage Signup and view all the answers

What capability did Pascal's mechanical calculator possess?

Addition and subtraction only Signup and view all the answers

What technology first marked the era of miniaturization in computing?

Transistors Signup and view all the answers

What method was used for multiplication and division in Pascal's calculator?

Repeated addition and subtraction Signup and view all the answers

How many read operations are performed for the instruction that involves a memory operand?

Two read operations Signup and view all the answers

What does PC stand for in the context of memory operations?

Program Counter Signup and view all the answers

What happens to the PC after the instruction is fetched from memory?

It is incremented to point to the next instruction Signup and view all the answers

If both operands in the instruction are in processor registers, what is the primary requirement before execution?

Fetch the instruction from memory Signup and view all the answers

In which register is the fetched instruction stored after being read from memory?

MDR Signup and view all the answers

What is the value stored in location LOCA before the execution of the instruction?

75 Signup and view all the answers

What is the primary advantage of using mnemonics like ADD in assembly language over binary representations?

It simplifies the coding process for programmers. Signup and view all the answers

When executing an instruction that adds two registers together, what step is unnecessary?

Reading the operands from memory Signup and view all the answers

What is the purpose of the Memory Address Register (MAR)?

To store the address of the instruction to be read Signup and view all the answers

In the IEEE floating point format, what is the role of the sign bit?

It specifies whether the number is positive or negative. Signup and view all the answers

How many bits are allocated for the exponent in single precision floating point representation according to the IEEE format?

8 bits Signup and view all the answers

What defines the range of the mantissa in floating point representation?

It must always fall between 1.0 and 2.0. Signup and view all the answers

Which of the following is NOT a characteristic of double precision floating point numbers?

They provide less accuracy than single precision. Signup and view all the answers

What is the significance of having an implied radix point in the mantissa?

It ensures that the first digit is always 1. Signup and view all the answers

How would adding ten numbers in assembly language be described in a high-level programming approach?

It requires explicit initialization and looping. Signup and view all the answers

What determines the number of significant digits in a floating point representation?

The number of bits in the mantissa. Signup and view all the answers

What factors determine the number of bytes required to represent a particular instruction?

The number of registers and instructions available in a computer Signup and view all the answers

Why is memory often organized to allow multiple bytes to be accessed simultaneously?

To bridge the processor memory speed gap Signup and view all the answers

Which of the following memory sizes is equivalent to 1 terabyte?

2^30 bytes Signup and view all the answers

What is one major issue that arises from the increasing speed of processors compared to memory?

There is a growing processor memory performance gap Signup and view all the answers

How is the memory processor speed gap described?

The gap is steadily increasing despite enhancements Signup and view all the answers

What instruction format is suggested in the example provided?

ADD R1, LOCA Signup and view all the answers

Which of the following describes a technique that could be used to bridge the memory processor speed gap?

Using cache memory and memory interleaving Signup and view all the answers

Which of these memory sizes signifies 1 megabyte?

2^20 bytes Signup and view all the answers

What is the main advantage of pipelining in processing computations?

It proposes a philosophy of executing different computations in parallel to improve overall performance. Signup and view all the answers

How is the overall computation divided in a pipelining system?

Into several stages or sub-computations that can be executed concurrently. Signup and view all the answers

What is a key expectation when implementing pipelining?

A minimal increase in the cost of implementation with significant potential speedup. Signup and view all the answers

What can the speedup from pipelining be close to?

The number of sub-functional units into which the computation is divided. Signup and view all the answers

What is a fundamental cycle in instruction processing related to pipelining?

Fetch and execute cycle. Signup and view all the answers

Which of the following describes the philosophy behind pipelining?

Dividing tasks into smaller segments to optimize efficiency. Signup and view all the answers

What does instruction level pipelining aim to enhance in a processor?

The speed at which instructions can be executed in sequence. Signup and view all the answers

In what area beyond arithmetic circuits can pipelining be beneficial?

Instruction execution in computer architecture. Signup and view all the answers

Study Notes

Computer Organization and Architecture

Components such as processor units, registers, and ALUs form the basis of computer organization.
The choice of specific components (e.g., types of adders like carry save or carry look-ahead) is determined by computer organization principles.

Evolution of Computers

Development driven by the need for automatic computing machines.
Early mechanical devices included pulleys, levers, and gears.
During WWII, mechanical relays were employed for computation.
ENIAC was the first electronic computer utilizing vacuum tubes.
The evolution of transistors began a miniaturization journey, leading from small scale integration to ultra-large scale integration today.

Historical Milestones

Blaise Pascal invented the first mechanical calculator capable of basic addition and subtraction.
Charles Babbage designed the first automatic computing engine, but it was never constructed.
Early computing involved fetching, decoding, executing instructions, and using register operations.

Memory Operations

Instructions typically require multiple memory operations (fetching from memory and executing).
Example of instruction execution includes transferring values between registers and memory locations using the Program Counter (PC), Memory Address Register (MAR), and Memory Data Register (MDR).

Instruction Execution

Operations like ADD can involve both memory and register operands.
A particular instruction depends on the bit size of the operands and the instruction itself, affecting the number of bytes used.

Memory Speed Gap

Increasing CPU speed has outpaced memory speed improvements, resulting in a growing processor-memory performance gap.
Techniques like cache memory and memory interleaving are employed to bridge this gap.

Memory Size Specification

Memory sizes: byte (8 bits), kilobyte (2^10), megabyte (2^20), gigabyte (2^30), terabyte (2^40), and higher units (petabyte, exabyte, zettabyte).
Assembly language provides a more human-readable interface for programming compared to machine language.

Floating Point Representation

Floating point numbers are represented using a sign bit (s), mantissa (M), and exponent (E).
Single precision is 32 bits (1 sign bit, 8 exponent bits, 23 mantissa bits); double precision is 64 bits (1 sign bit, 11 exponent bits, 52 mantissa bits).
The number of significant digits depends on the mantissa bit allocation.

Pipelining Concepts

Pipelining allows for overlapped execution of multiple computations, increasing efficiency without significant hardware investment.
Overall computation can be divided into stages (sub-computations) for performance enhancement.
Significant speedup can be achieved through pipelining, close to the number of stages defined.

Instruction Level Pipelining

Instructions undergo a fetch-execute cycle, where fetched instructions are decoded and executed accordingly.
Pipelining can also be used to expedite calculations within arithmetic circuits and overall instruction execution.

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Description

This quiz focuses on the design of components and functional blocks that constitute computer systems. It includes discussions on processors, registers, ALUs, and the specific types of adders used in these systems. Test your knowledge on the organizational architecture of computer design.