1.1.2 Types of processor

Question 1

CISC

Answer 1

Complex Instruction Set Computer: “A design that produces a complicated and expensive integrated circuit capable of performing a large variety of complex instructions. Complex instructions can be executed with few machine cycles.”

Question 2

RISC

Answer 2

Reduced Instruction Set Computer: “A design that produces a simple, cheap integrated circuit with a basic range of machine instructions. Relies on speed as complex instructions take many machine cycles.”

Question 3

GPU

Answer 3

Graphical Processing Unit: “A specialised electronic circuit designed to rapidly manipulate and alter memory to accelerate the creation of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display. Modern GPUs highly parallel structure makes them more effective than general-purpose CPUs for algorithms where processing of large blocks of data is done in parallel.”

Question 4

Multicore System

Answer 4

“Development of CISC architecture with several sets of CPU components in one microprocessor.”

Question 5

Parallel Processor System

Answer 5

“The simultaneous use of several processors to perform a single job. A job may be split into a number of tasks each of which may be processed by any available processor.”