Processor Pipelining
Question
Which of the following is a set of data processing elements thatincreases the performance in a computer by overlapping the steps of different instructions?
Answers
Explanations
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A. B. C. D.A.
Pipelining is a natural concept in everyday life, e.g.
on an assembly line.
Consider the assembly of a car: assume that certain steps in the assembly line are to install the engine, install the hood, and install the wheels (in that order, with arbitrary interstitial steps)
A car on the assembly line can have only one of the three steps done at once.After the car has its engine installed, it moves on to having its hood installed, leaving the engine installation facilities available for the next car.
The first car then moves on to wheel installation, the second car to hood installation, and a third car begins to have its engine installed.
If engine installation takes 20 minutes, hood installation takes 5 minutes, and wheel installation takes 10 minutes, then finishing all three cars when only one car can be assembled at once would take 105 minutes.
On the other hand, using the assembly line, the total time to complete all three is 75 minutes.
At this point, additional cars will come off the assembly line at 20 minute increments.
In computing, a pipeline is a set of data processing elements connected in series, so that the output of one element is the input of the next one.
The elements of a pipeline are often executed in parallel or in time-sliced fashion; in that case, some amount of buffer storage is often inserted between elements.Pipelining is used in processors to allow overlapping execution of multiple instructions within the same circuitry.
The circuitry is usually divided into stages, including instruction decoding, arithmetic, and register fetching stages, wherein each stage processes one instruction at a time.
The following were not correct answers: CISC: is a CPU design where single instructions execute several low-level operations (such as a load from memory, an arithmetic operation, and a memory store) within a single instruction.
RISC: is a CPU design based on simplified instructions that can provide higher performance as the simplicity enables much faster execution of each instruction.
Multitasking: is a method where multiple tasks share common processing resources, such as a CPU, through a method of fast scheduling that gives the appearance of parallelism, but in reality only one task is being performed at any one time.
& VINES, Russel.
D., The CISSP Prep Guide: Mastering the Ten Domains of Computer Security, pages 188-189
Also see - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pipeline_(computing)
The correct answer is A. Pipelining.
Pipelining is a technique used in computer architecture to increase the performance of a CPU (Central Processing Unit) by overlapping the steps of different instructions. It allows the CPU to work on multiple instructions at the same time, by breaking down the instruction execution process into smaller stages and processing them in parallel.
When a CPU executes an instruction, it goes through several stages, including fetching, decoding, executing, and storing. In a pipelined architecture, these stages are overlapped for multiple instructions. For example, while the CPU is executing one instruction, it can simultaneously fetch the next instruction, decode the instruction after that, and store the result of the instruction before that.
This technique allows the CPU to achieve a higher throughput and performance, as it reduces the amount of idle time that the CPU would otherwise spend waiting for the completion of an instruction before moving on to the next one. Pipelining is commonly used in modern CPU architectures, including those found in personal computers, servers, and mobile devices.
Option B, CISC, refers to a type of CPU architecture that uses complex instructions that can perform multiple operations in a single instruction. Option C, RISC, refers to a type of CPU architecture that uses simpler instructions that perform only one operation each. Both CISC and RISC architectures can be pipelined, but pipelining is not specific to either architecture.
Option D, multitasking, refers to the ability of an operating system to run multiple applications or processes concurrently, allowing users to perform multiple tasks simultaneously. While multitasking can improve the user experience and overall system performance, it is not directly related to CPU architecture and pipelining.
