Computer Organization and Architecture, unit: Pipelining. Core concepts, terminology, and worked-example cues a college student meets for this unit, building on prior units without repeating them. Front: a term, concept, or short problem cue. Back: the definition, explanation, or answer.
15 cards · basic cards · AI-written, checked twice. Edit anything.
- What is pipelining, in CPU design?
- Overlapping the execution stages of multiple instructions to improve throughput
- What is the main benefit of instruction pipelining?
- Increased instruction throughput by processing multiple instructions simultaneously in different stages
- What is a pipeline stage?
- One step in the instruction execution process, such as fetch, decode, or execute
- What is a pipeline hazard?
- A situation that prevents the next instruction from executing in its designated clock cycle
- What is a structural hazard?
- A pipeline conflict caused by limited hardware resources needed by multiple instructions simultaneously
- What is a data hazard?
- A pipeline conflict where an instruction depends on the result of a prior instruction not yet completed
- What is a control hazard?
- A pipeline conflict caused by branch instructions that change the flow of execution
- What is pipeline stalling?
- Pausing pipeline execution temporarily to resolve a hazard
- What is forwarding (data bypassing) used for in pipelines?
- Passing a computed result directly to a dependent instruction before it is formally stored
- What is branch prediction?
- Guessing the outcome of a conditional branch in advance to keep the pipeline full
- What happens on a branch misprediction?
- Instructions fetched based on the wrong guess must be discarded and the pipeline restarted
- What is pipeline depth?
- The number of stages an instruction passes through in the pipeline
- What is superscalar execution?
- A CPU design that issues multiple instructions per clock cycle using multiple execution units
- What is out-of-order execution?
- Executing instructions in an order different from the program order to avoid stalls
- What is instruction-level parallelism?
- The degree to which instructions in a program can be executed simultaneously
FlashKeepers