Computer Architecture Ch 8 Quiz

Cache memory hit ratios of ________ percent and above are common with just a small amount of cache.

90

What are the slowest steps in the instruction fetch-execute cycle?

Slowest steps are those that require memory access.

There are several factors that determine the number of instructions that a computer can perform in a second. Which of the following is NOT a factor?

Word Size

The __________ must be designed to assure that each step of the instruction cycle has time to complete before the results are required by the next step.

clock cycle

The ___________ unit contains the arithmetic/logic unit and the portion of the control unit that identifies and controls the steps that comprise the execution part for each different instruction.

execution

The use of fixed-length, fixed-format instruction words with the op code and address fields in the same position for every instruction would allow instructions to be fetched and decoded

independently and in parallel.

CPU architecture is defined by the basic characteristics and major features of the CPU. "CPU architecture" is sometimes called

instruction set architecture

Another method for increasing the effective rate of memory access is to divide memory into parts, called, _____________ so that it is possible to access more than one location at a time.

memory interleaving

What does "locality of reference" mean?

most memory references are confined to one or a few small regions of memory

Computers that have multiple CPUs within a single computer, sharing some or all of the system's memory and I/O facilities, are called______________, or sometimes tightly coupled systems.

multiprocessor systems

Overlapping instructions—so that more than one instruction is being worked on at a time—is known as the

pipelining method.

A(n) _____________ processor is one that can complete an instruction with each clock tick.

scalar

Instruction reordering makes it possible to provide parallel pipelines, with duplicate CPU logic, so that multiple instructions can actually be executed

simultaneously.

When a cache miss occurs, however, there is a time delay while new data is moved to the cache. The time to move data to the cache is called _____________ time.

stall

Which of the following is not a specific execution unit?

steering unit