C952 Computer Architecture Extended with
complete solutions
Moore's Law
states that integrated circuit resources double every 18-24 months
Pipelining
Moves multiple operations through hardware units that each do a piece of an operation.
A means of introducing parallelism into the essentially sequential nature of a machine-instruction
program.
Systems software
provides services that are commonly useful, including operating systems, compilers, loaders, and
assemblers.
Operating System (OS)
Supervising program that manages the resources of a computer for the benefit of the programs that
run on that computer.
The five classic components of a computer
Input, output, memory, datapath, and control, with the last two sometimes combined and called the
processor.
liquid crystal display (LCD)
technology using a thin layer of liquid polymers that can be used to transmit or block light according
to whether a charge is applied
Active matrix display
display using a transistor to control the transmission of light at each individual pixel.
Pixel
The smallest individual picture element. Screens are composed of hundreds of thousands to millions
of these, organized in a matrix
Cache memory
small, fast memory that acts as a buffer for the DRAM memory
Static Random Access Memory (SRAM)
Cache is built using this memory technology
Implementation
Hardware that obeys the architecture abstraction
LAN
A network designed to carry data within a geographically confined area, typically within a single
building
,WAN
A network extended over hundreds of kilometers that can span a continent
Transistor
An on/off switch controlled by an electric signal.
VLSI
A circuit containing hundreds of thousands to millions of transistors
Throughput
Another measure of performance, it is the number of tasks completed per unit time
Bandwidth
Another term for throughput
Raid 0
no redundancy, striping
Raid 1
mirroring, redundancy
Raid 2
error detecting and correcting code, not used
Raid 3
bit interleaved parity
Raid 4
block interleaved parity
Raid 5
distributed block-interleaved parit
Raid 6
P&Q redundancy
Instruction set
The vocabulary of commands understood by a given architecture.
Stored-program concept
The idea that instructions and data of many types can be stored in memory as numbers and thus be
easy to changer
, Word
A natural unit of access in a computer, usually a group of 32 bits.
Doubleword
Another natural unit of access in a computer, usually a group of 64 bits; corresponds to the size of a
register in the LEGv8 architecture
Design Principle 1
Simplicity favors regularity
Design Principle 2
Smaller is faster
Least significant bit
The rightmost bit in an LEGv8 doubleword
Most significant bit
The leftmost bit in an LEGv8 doubleword
One's complement
A notation that represents the most negative value by 10 ... 000two and the most positive value by 01
... 11two, leaving an equal number of negatives and positives but ending up with two zeros, one
positive (00 ... 00two) and one negative (11 ... 11two). The term is also used to mean the inversion of
every bit in a pattern: 0 to 1 and 1 to 0.
Biased notation
A notation that represents the most negative value by 00 ... 000two and the most positive value by 11
... 11two, with 0 typically having the value 10 ... 00two, thereby biasing the number such that the
number plus the bias has a non-negative representation
Instruction format
A form of representation of an instruction composed of fields of binary numbers
Hexidecimal
Numbers in base 16
Opcode
The field that denotes the operation and format of an instruction
Design Principle 3
Good design demands good compromises
Procedure
complete solutions
Moore's Law
states that integrated circuit resources double every 18-24 months
Pipelining
Moves multiple operations through hardware units that each do a piece of an operation.
A means of introducing parallelism into the essentially sequential nature of a machine-instruction
program.
Systems software
provides services that are commonly useful, including operating systems, compilers, loaders, and
assemblers.
Operating System (OS)
Supervising program that manages the resources of a computer for the benefit of the programs that
run on that computer.
The five classic components of a computer
Input, output, memory, datapath, and control, with the last two sometimes combined and called the
processor.
liquid crystal display (LCD)
technology using a thin layer of liquid polymers that can be used to transmit or block light according
to whether a charge is applied
Active matrix display
display using a transistor to control the transmission of light at each individual pixel.
Pixel
The smallest individual picture element. Screens are composed of hundreds of thousands to millions
of these, organized in a matrix
Cache memory
small, fast memory that acts as a buffer for the DRAM memory
Static Random Access Memory (SRAM)
Cache is built using this memory technology
Implementation
Hardware that obeys the architecture abstraction
LAN
A network designed to carry data within a geographically confined area, typically within a single
building
,WAN
A network extended over hundreds of kilometers that can span a continent
Transistor
An on/off switch controlled by an electric signal.
VLSI
A circuit containing hundreds of thousands to millions of transistors
Throughput
Another measure of performance, it is the number of tasks completed per unit time
Bandwidth
Another term for throughput
Raid 0
no redundancy, striping
Raid 1
mirroring, redundancy
Raid 2
error detecting and correcting code, not used
Raid 3
bit interleaved parity
Raid 4
block interleaved parity
Raid 5
distributed block-interleaved parit
Raid 6
P&Q redundancy
Instruction set
The vocabulary of commands understood by a given architecture.
Stored-program concept
The idea that instructions and data of many types can be stored in memory as numbers and thus be
easy to changer
, Word
A natural unit of access in a computer, usually a group of 32 bits.
Doubleword
Another natural unit of access in a computer, usually a group of 64 bits; corresponds to the size of a
register in the LEGv8 architecture
Design Principle 1
Simplicity favors regularity
Design Principle 2
Smaller is faster
Least significant bit
The rightmost bit in an LEGv8 doubleword
Most significant bit
The leftmost bit in an LEGv8 doubleword
One's complement
A notation that represents the most negative value by 10 ... 000two and the most positive value by 01
... 11two, leaving an equal number of negatives and positives but ending up with two zeros, one
positive (00 ... 00two) and one negative (11 ... 11two). The term is also used to mean the inversion of
every bit in a pattern: 0 to 1 and 1 to 0.
Biased notation
A notation that represents the most negative value by 00 ... 000two and the most positive value by 11
... 11two, with 0 typically having the value 10 ... 00two, thereby biasing the number such that the
number plus the bias has a non-negative representation
Instruction format
A form of representation of an instruction composed of fields of binary numbers
Hexidecimal
Numbers in base 16
Opcode
The field that denotes the operation and format of an instruction
Design Principle 3
Good design demands good compromises
Procedure
