Computer Organization and Architecture, unit: Parallel Architecture Basics. 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.
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- What is parallel architecture?
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A computer design that performs multiple computations simultaneously using multiple processing units- What is Flynn's taxonomy?
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A classification of computer architectures based on instruction and data stream parallelism- What is SISD (Single Instruction, Single Data)?
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A traditional architecture executing one instruction on one data item at a time- What is SIMD (Single Instruction, Multiple Data)?
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An architecture applying one instruction simultaneously across multiple data elements- What is MIMD (Multiple Instruction, Multiple Data)?
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An architecture where multiple processors execute different instructions on different data independently- What is a multi-core processor's key advantage?
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It can execute multiple independent tasks or threads simultaneously on separate cores- What is shared memory architecture?
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A parallel system where multiple processors access a common memory space- What is distributed memory architecture?
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A parallel system where each processor has its own private memory, communicating via messages- What is a thread, in the context of parallel computing?
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An independent sequence of instructions that can be scheduled and executed concurrently- What is speedup, in parallel computing?
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The performance improvement gained by using multiple processors compared to a single one- What is Amdahl's Law used for?
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Estimating the maximum possible speedup from parallelizing a program, limited by its serial portion- What is a race condition, in parallel computing?
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An error caused by multiple processes accessing shared data without proper synchronization- What is synchronization, in parallel systems?
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Coordinating multiple processes or threads to ensure correct, ordered access to shared resources- What is scalability, in the context of parallel architecture?
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The ability of a system to maintain performance gains as more processors are added- What is MISD (Multiple Instruction, Single Data)?
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A Flynn's taxonomy class where multiple processing units execute different instructions on the same data stream; rare in practice, sometimes used for fault-tolerant systems.
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