20CS401-Computer Organization and Architecture
UNIT-III
PROCESSOR AND CONTROL UNIT
PART A
1) What is Pipelining?
• The technique of overlapping the execution of successive instruction for substantial
.improvement in performance is called pipelining.
• The pipeline allows the execution of multiple instructions concurrently with the
limitation that no two instructions would be executed at the same stage in the same clock
cycle.
2) What is data hazard?
Any condition in which either the source or the destination operands of an instruction are
not available at the time expected in the pipeline is called data hazard.
3) What is Instruction or control hazard?
The pipeline may be stalled because of a delay in the availability of an instruction.
This may be a result of a miss in the cache. Branch instruction execution may produce stalls
in the pipeline. Such hazards are often called as control hazards or instruction hazards.
4) Explain Structural Hazard.
When two instructions require the use of a given hardware resource at the same time then
stall occurs in pipeline. That is called structural hazard
5) Differentiate Hardwired Control and Micro programmed control.
Hardwired Control Microprogrammed Control
Hardwired control unit generates the Microprogrammed control unit generates the
control signals using logic circuits. control signals using micro instructions
stored in control memory.
Hardwired control unit is faster as the This is slower than the other as
required control signals are generated with microinstructions are used for generating
the help of hardware. signals here.
6) Define Nano Programming.
• Horizontal micro-instructions can produce multiple control signals simultaneously but
are very wide. This makes the control memory very large.
• Vertical micro-instructions are narrow, but after decoding, only produce one control sig-
nal. This makes the control memory small, but the execution is slow.
• Hence, a combination of both techniques is done which is called as Nano programming.
7) State about exceptions and interrupts.
Exceptions and interrupts are events that change the normal flow of instruction execution.
Exception
Exception is also called as interrupt. An unscheduled event that disrupts program execution
and they are used to detect overflow.
Interrupt
It is an exception that comes from outside of the processor.
8) What do you mean by branch penalty?
The time lost as a result of a branch instruction is often referred to as branch penalty.
9) List the building blocks of Raspberry Pi.
• Central Processing Unit (CPU)
• HDMI port.
• Graphic Processing Unit (GPU)
• Memory (RAM).
• Ethernet port.
• SD card slot.
• General Purpose Input and Output (GPIO) pins.
• LEDs.
10) Define datapath.
As instruction execution progress data are transferred from one instruction to another, often
passing through the ALU to perform some arithmetic or logical operations. The registers,
ALU, and the interconnecting bus are collectively referred as the data path.
11) What is imprecise and precise exception?
Precise exception:
• All instructions before the one causing the exception have completed.
• No instructions after the faulting one have executed or modified any state
Imprecise exception:
• Some instructions after the faulting one may have already executed.
•It is difficult to determine which instructions have completed.
12) Define Multicore processors.
A multi-core processor is a processing system composed of two or more independent cores.
The cores are typically integrated onto a single integrated circuit die or they may be
integrated onto multiple dies in a single chip package.
13) Distinguish between Static and Dynamic Branch Prediction:
STATIC BRANCH PREDICTION DYNAMIC BRANCH PREDICTION
Branch can be predicted based on It used recent branch history during program
branch codes type statistically execution, information is stored in buffer
called branch target buffer(BTB)
It may not produce accurate result Processing of conditional branches with zero
every time Delay
PART B
1. Explain in detail about Instruction hazard, its causes and how to overcome it.
2. Explain in detail about Data hazard, causes and how to overcome it.
3. Demonstrate the data path with suitable elements diagram.
4. Explain the MIPS implementation with necessary diagram in detail.
