1.1 Characteristics Of Contemporary Processors

Question 1

What is the ALU (what does it stand for and its definition) ?

Answer 1

Arithmetic Logic Unit
It holds all mathematical and logical operations

Question 2

What is the control unit (definition and some of its jobs) ?

Answer 2

It directs the operations of the CPU
It transmits a control signal through a control bus
It coordinates the activities of the CPU
Controls where buses are sent (bus request, bus grant etc)

Question 3

What are registers?

Answer 3

They are small ultra fast memory
They temporarily store data and are used for the FDE cycle

Question 4

Name the 5 registers within the FDE cycle (include abbreviations) ?

Answer 4

Program Counter (PC)
Memory Data Register (MDR)
Memory Address Register (MAR)
Accumulator
Current Instruction Register (CIR)

Question 5

What is the definition of Program Counter (PC) ?

Answer 5

The program counter stores the address of the next instruction to be decoded.

Question 6

What is the accumulator?

Answer 6

It temporarily stores the results from the ALU - arithmetic logic unit

Question 7

What is the MAR?

Answer 7

Holds the address of the location to be read or written from. Copies the address from the PC and uses an address bus to locate the memory address from RAM to later be used by the MDR

Question 8

What is the MDR?

Answer 8

It temporarily stores the data that needs to be read or written from.

Question 9

What is the CIR?

Answer 9

It holds the current instruction to be decoded splitting it into the opcode and operand. Opcode stores the actual instruction to be performed on the data whereas the operand stores the data to be performed on.

Question 10

What are buses (describe them and the types of buses) ?

Answer 10

Buses are a set of parallel wires located within the CPU
There are three types of buses:
Control bus
Address bus
Data bus

Question 12

What is a data bus?

Answer 12

It is a bi directional bus (data can be sent back n forth between components)
It is used to ** transport data ** and instructions between components

Question 13

What is the control bus?

Answer 13

It is a bi directional bus
It holds a control signal sent by the control unit to allow communication between external and internal components

Question 14

What is an address bus?

Answer 14

It is a uni directional bus (can only be sent towards a component)
It is used to transmit the memory address specifying where data is suppose to be retrieved from

Question 15

What are examples of the control signal?

Answer 15

Bus grant: CPU has granted access to the data bus
Bus request: A component is requesting the use of the data bus
Clock: used to synchronise operations
Interrupt request: shows a device is requesting access to the CPU

Question 16

What is assembly language?

Answer 16

Using mnemonics to represent instructions.
It is the closes to machine code

Question 17

What is pipelining?

Answer 17

Pipelining is the process of completing the FDE cycle in three simultaneous seperate instructions.
It holds the data in a buffer.
Whilst A is being fetched, B is decoded and C is being executed

Question 18

What are factors that affect the CPU?

Answer 18

Cache
Cores
Clock speed

Question 19

What are the types of cache?

Answer 19

Level 1 cache - smallest but fastest
Level 2 cache
Level 3 cache - biggest but slowest

Question 20

What are the two types of architecture?

Answer 20

Von Neumann Architecture
Harvard Architecture

Question 21

What is the Von Neumann Architecture?

Answer 21

Data and instructions are stored and shared in memory together

Question 22

What is the Harvard architecture?

Answer 22

It has physically separate memories for instructions and data

Question 23

What are advantages of both Harvard and Von Neumann?

Answer 23

Von Neumann is cheaper to develop and optimises size as there is not set size for both instructions and data.
Harvard architecture can parallel process meaning data and instructions can be executed quickly and it allows for efficient use of space

Question 24

What is contemporary processing?

Answer 24

It is a combination of Harvard and Von Neumann architecture. Cache is Harvard architecture but Von Neumann is used with main memory

Question 25

What is RISC?

Answer 25

Reduced Instruction Set Computers Each line of code is one instruction and is completed in one clock cycle

Question 26

What is CISC?

Answer 26

Complex Instruction Set Computer It consists of aiming to create as few lines of code possible within code.

Question 27

CISC VS RISC

Answer 27

CISC: more expensive and harder to code as their is many specialised instructions used Has niche usability due to its special instructions Used in embedded systems Less RAM required Compiler has less work to do RISC: More RAM is required Compiler has more work to do Pipelining is possible Faster execution along parallel processing

Question 28

What is multicore systems?

Answer 28

A system which has multiple independent cores. It can complete instructions separately which results in higher performance. They are great for large scales projects

Question 29

What are GPU’s?

Answer 29

Graphical Processing Units consists of a lot of independent processing that are able to work in parallel. This means they are a co-processor (a processor supplied with the task of assisting the primary processor)

Question 30

What are parallel systems?

Answer 30

Similar to multcore systems they only have a single core that accomplishes many tasks through threading.

Question 31

What are examples of tasks the GPU are able to accomplish?

Answer 31

Machine learning, image processing, data mining, 3D modelling etc

Question 32

What is an input device provide examples?

Answer 32

It is a device which puts data and information into the computer Examples are keyboard and mouse (peripheral)

Question 33

What are output devices providing examples?

Answer 33

Are devices that can be used to send instructions from the computer Examples are printers

Question 34

What are the three types of storage?

Answer 34

Magnetic Optical Flash

Question 35

What is the optical storage?

Answer 35

It is a storage device that is read and written from using lasers. There are pits or lands that reflect back one of the two numbers in binary 0 and 1. A laser is shun upon it and depending on its reflection means whether or not its 1 and 0

Question 36

What is magnetic storage?

Answer 36

Unlike optical this polarity to determine whether or not it’s 1 and 0. Using a magnet whether the signs returned as north and south means whether it is 1 or 0

Question 37

What is flash storage?

Answer 37

Out of all of them flash is the most simple. It is run electronically using logic gates to understand whether the data is 1 and 0 corresponding with true or false

Question 38

Examples of magnetic storage:

Answer 38

Magnetic tape, Hard Disk drives and floppy disks

Question 39

Examples of optical storage

Answer 39

CD’s, blu-ray and even DvD

Question 40

What is the difference between RAM and ROM

Answer 40

RAM is a volatile part of memory. It stores data and instructions currently being used in main memory and can be read or written from whereas ROM is a non volatile part of memory where it can only be read from. It stores things such as the BIOS etc.

Question 41

What is virtual storage?

Answer 41

It is an abstraction of multiple drives resulting in storing information remotely. It can be accessed on different computers over the internet. An example is iCloud from Apple.

Question 42

Adv & Dis of storage types

Answer 42

Magnetic + non volatile + can be rewritten over +magnetic is considered relatively cheap +has a lot of capacity - magnetic fields can damage the files - it has moving parts meaning it can be damages - it is slower compared to other storage types -prone to damage Optical +affordable +durable +has high storage space -bad for the environment -older gen so some things don’t accustom for it Flash +fastest +reliable +non volatile +efficient +portable -cost -capacity