Questions and Answers of Essentials Of Computer Organization

10. The effective address of an operand is the value of its actual address in memory.
9. Instruction set orthogonality refers to the characteristic in an instruction set architecture where each instruction has a “backup”instruction that performs the same operation.
8. Expanding opcodes make instruction decoding much easier than when it is not used.
7. Fixed-length instruction format typically results in better performance than variable-length instruction format.
Most architectures today are accumulator based.
5. Stack architectures have good code density and a simple model for evaluation of expressions, but do not allow random access, which can cause a problem with the generation of efficient code.
The term “endian” refers to an architecture’s byte ordering.
An instruction takes less time to execute on a processor using an instruction pipeline than on a processor without an instruction pipeline.
The advantage of zero-address instruction computers is that they have short programs; the disadvantage is that the instructions require many bits, making them very long.
Most computers typically fall into one of three types of CPU organization: (1) general register organization; (2) single accumulator organization; or (3) stack organization.
What causes external fragmentation, and how can it be fixed?
When would a system ever need to page its page table?
What are the advantages and disadvantages of virtual memory?
What is a TLB, and how does it improve EAT?
What are the components (fields) of a virtual address?
What causes internal fragmentation?
What is a page fault?
Discuss the pros and cons of paging.
What is the objective of paging?
30. What is the difference between a virtual memory address and a physical memory address? Which is larger? Why?
29. What is the advantage of a nonblocking cache?
28. Explain the differences between inclusive and exclusive cache.
27. Explain the differences among L1, L2, and L3 cache.
Why would a system contain a victim cache? A trace cache?
25. What are the advantages of a Harvard cache?
24. Explain the difference between a unified cache and a Harvard cache.
23. Describe the advantages and disadvantages of the two cache write policies.
What is a dirty block?
When does caching behave badly?
Explain how to derive an effective access time formula.
What, exactly, is effective access time (EAT)?
18. What is the worst-case cache behavior that can develop using LRU and FIFO cache replacement policies?
17. Why is the optimal cache replacement policy important?
16. Explain the four cache replacement policies presented in this chapter.
15. What are the three fields in a set-associative cache address, and how are they used to access a location in cache?
14. Direct-mapped cache is a special case of set-associative cache where the set size is 1. So fully associative cache is a special case of setassociative cache where the set size is ______.
13. Explain how set-associative cache combines the ideas of direct and fully associative cache.
12. Explain how fully associative cache is different from direct-mapped cache.
11. How does associative memory differ from regular memory? Which is more expensive and why?
10. What are the three fields in a direct-mapped cache address? How are they used to access a word located in cache?
9. Cache is accessed by its _______, whereas main memory is accessed by its _______.
Which of L1 or L2 cache is faster? Which is smaller? Why is it smaller?
Give two noncomputer examples of the concept of cache.
What are the three forms of locality?
5. Explain the concept of locality of reference, and state its importance to memory systems.
4. Explain the concept of a memory hierarchy. Why did your authors choose to represent it as a pyramid?
Name three different applications where ROMs are often used.
What are the advantages of using DRAM for main memory?
Which is faster, SRAM or DRAM?
What is a memristor, and how does it store data?
How does CNT storage work?
What is the general idea behind MEMS storage?
Explain how holographic storage works.
What does the superparamagnetic limit mean for disk drives?
What is the significance of the superparamagnetic limit?
. What are hybrid RAID systems?
Which RAID level uses a mirror (shadow) set?
41. Which RAID levels offer the best economy while providing adequate redundancy?
40. Which RAID levels offer the best performance?
39. What are two popular tape formats that use serpentine recording?
38. Explain how serpentine recording differs from helical scan recording.
Why is magnetic tape a popular storage medium?
Name the three methods for recording WORM disks.
Explain why Blu-ray discs hold so much more data than regular DVDs.
How do DVDs store so much more data than regular CDs?
Do CDs that store data use recording sessions?
Why are CDs especially useful for long-term data storage?
How is the format of a CD that stores music different from the format of a CD that stores data? How are the formats alike?
30. Magnetic disks store bytes by changing the polarity of a magnetic medium. How do optical disks store bytes?
29. What is the acronym for computer output that is written directly to optical media rather than paper or microfiche?
28. What is the name for robotic optical disk library devices?
27. What is wear leveling, and why is it needed for SSDs?
26. How do enterprise SSDs differ from SSDs intended for laptop computers?
25. What is short stroking, and how does it affect the relative cost per gigabyte of SSDs?
24. By how much is an SSD faster than a magnetic disk?
23. Explain the differences between an SSD and a magnetic disk.
22. What is the sum of rotational delay and seek time called?
What is seek time?
What is zoned-bit recording?
19. What are the major physical components of a rigid disk drive?
18. Explain the relationship among disk platters, tracks, sectors, and clusters.
17. Why are magnetic disks called direct access devices?
16. What is settle time, and what can be done about it?
15. What distinguishes an asynchronous bus from a synchronous bus?
14. What is multiplexing?
13. How is channel I/O similar to DMA?
12. How is channel I/O different from interrupt-driven I/O?
11. What does it mean when someone refers to I/O as bursty?
10. Why does DMA require cycle stealing?
9. What is a bus master?
8. How does direct memory access (DMA) work?
7. How are address vectors used in interrupt-driven I/O?
6. What is polling?
5. Explain how programmed I/O is different from interrupt-driven I/O.
4. Name three types of durable storage.
3. What is a protocol, and why is it important in I/O bus technology?
2. What is speedup?
1. State Amdahl’s Law in words.
Herbert Grosch (b. 1918) has been an eminent computer scientist since the 1940s. In 1965, he put forth a claim that he“humbly” called Grosch’s Law. This law can be paraphrased as:Computer
A certain microprocessor requires either 2, 4, 8, 12, or 16 machine cycles to perform various operations. A total of 17.5% of its instructions require 2 machine cycles, 12.5% require 4 machine

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