Microcomputer Systems Quiz

Parallel Processing

• A collection of lines that connects several devices is called a bus.
• A complete microcomputer system consists of a microprocessor, memory, and peripheral equipment.
• The PC Program Counter is also called the instruction pointer.
• A single byte consists of 8 bits.
• The CPU does not perform data transfer operations.
• The access time of memory is longer than the time required for performing any single CPU operation.
• Memory address refers to successive memory words, and the machine is called word addressable.
• A microprogram written as a string of 0's and 1's is a binary micro-program.
• A pipeline is like an automobile assembly line.

Processors and Architecture

• Processors of all computers, whether micro, mini, or mainframe, must have an Arithmetic Logic Unit (ALU), primary storage, a control unit, and can be classified as Single Instruction Single Data (SISD) type.
• The speedup of parallel programs according to Amdahl's law for an infinite number of processors, if 5% of a program is sequential and the remaining part is ideally parallel, is 20.

Cache and Memory Hierarchy

• Cache coherence is required for shared (virtual) memory systems and is suited for bus-based systems.
• The snooping protocol is used for cache coherence in bus-based systems.
• The fastest storage unit in a usual memory hierarchy is a register.
• In a system with a 16-bit address bus, the maximum number of 1K byte memory devices it could contain is 256.

Addressing and Memory

• The most common addressing techniques employed by a CPU are immediate, direct, indirect, and register addressing.
• The control unit's function in the CPU is to decode program instructions.
• Memory access in RISC architecture is limited to instructions such as STA and LDA.
• Interrupts which are initiated by an instruction are external interrupts.
• Interrupts can be generated from I/O devices.

Input/Output and Peripherals

• A peripheral is any physical device connected to the computer, such as a tapedrive.
• CD-ROM is an output device only.
• Large computer memory is required for applications such as imaging, graphics, and voice.

History and Development

• The major development that led to the production of microcomputers was the invention of Integrated Circuits.
• Konrad Zuse is not the correct answer (the correct answer is not provided in the options).

Cache Misses and Pipelining

• A cache miss that does not occur in case of a fully associative cache is a conflict miss.
• The cache miss that even occurs in infinite caches is a cold start miss.
• What is stored in a Translation Lookaside Buffer (TLB) is physical addresses.
• The concept of pipelining is most effective in improving performance if the tasks being performed in different stages require about the same amount of time.
• The Merge-Sort Algorithm is a better choice for pipelining.

Parallel Processing

• A collection of lines that connects several devices is called a bus.
• A complete microcomputer system consists of a microprocessor, memory, and peripheral equipment.
• The PC Program Counter is also called the instruction pointer.

Microprocessor

• A microprocessor is the central processing unit (CPU) of a computer.
• The CPU does not perform data transfer operations.
• A microprogram written as a string of 0's and 1's is a binary micro-program.

Memory

• A single byte consists of 8 bits.
• The access time of memory is longer than the time required for performing any single CPU operation.
• Memory address refers to the successive memory words, and the machine is called a word addressable machine.

Pipelining

• A pipeline is like an automobile assembly line.
• Data hazards occur when a pipeline changes the order of read/write access to operands.
• A processor performing fetch or decoding of different instructions during the execution of another instruction is called pipelining.

Parallel Processing

• Parallel processing may occur in both the instruction stream and the data stream.
• The cost of parallel processing is primarily determined by Circuit Complexity.
• Processors of all computers, whether micro, mini, or mainframe, must have a control unit.

Instruction Set Architecture

• A characteristic of RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computer) instruction set is one instruction per cycle.
• A characteristic of CISC (Complex Instruction Set Computer) instruction set is variable format instructions.

Cache and Coherence

• During the execution of instructions, a copy of the instructions is placed in the Cache.
• Cache coherence is a problem in shared memory systems, and the snooping protocol is suited for bus-based systems.

Interrupts

• Interrupts can indicate completion of an I/O operation.
• Devices connected to a microprocessor can use the data bus only when sending or receiving data.

Other Key Concepts

• The minimum number of flip-flops required in a counter to count 100 pulses is 7.
• A parity checker can be made using an Exclusive-OR gate.
• A RS flip-flop constructed with NAND gates and input R=1 and S=1 has an unused state.
• The advantage of RISC processors over CISC processors is that an instruction can be executed in one cycle.
• Dynamic RAMs are best suited for slow systems.
• Intel Pentium CPU is a RISC-based processor.

Performance and Speedup

• The speedup of a parallel program that achieves an efficiency of 75% on 32 processors is 24.
• Pipelining strategy is called implement instruction prefetch.
• The concept of pipelining is most effective in improving performance if the tasks being performed in different stages require about the same amount of time.
• Merge-Sort Algorithm is a better choice for pipelining.