OCR Computer Science Pipelining

What is pipelining in computer science?

• A technique that allows multiple instructions to be executed simultaneously by dividing them into larger stages and processing them in parallel.

• A technique that allows multiple instructions to be executed randomly by processing them in any order.

• A technique that allows multiple instructions to be executed sequentially by processing them one after another.

• A technique that allows multiple instructions to be executed simultaneously by dividing them into smaller stages and processing them in parallel.

What are the advantages of pipelining?

• Improved performance, reduced execution time, increased throughput, better resource utilisation

• Increased complexity, higher cost, more resource consumption, reduced efficiency

• No impact on performance, execution time, throughput, or resource utilisation

• Decreased performance, longer execution time, decreased throughput, worse resource utilisation

What are the stages involved in the pipelining process?

• instruction fetch, instruction decode, execution, memory access

• instruction fetch, instruction decode, execution, memory access, write back

• instruction fetch, instruction decode, execution, memory access, and write back

• instruction fetch, instruction decode, execution, memory access, write back

Explain the concept of data hazards in pipelining.

• Data hazards occur when there is a mismatch in the instruction set architecture.

• Data hazards occur when there is a delay in executing instructions.

• Data hazards occur when there is a dependency between instructions that causes a conflict in accessing or modifying data.

• Data hazards occur when there is a hardware malfunction in the pipeline.

What is instruction-level parallelism?

• Ability of a processor to execute multiple instructions sequentially

• Ability of a processor to execute multiple instructions simultaneously

• Ability of a processor to execute one instruction at a time

• Ability of a processor to execute instructions in a random order

How does pipelining improve the performance of a processor?

• By allowing multiple instructions to be executed simultaneously and overlapping the execution of different stages of instructions.

• By limiting the number of instructions that can be executed at a time.

• By increasing the number of clock cycles required for each instruction.

• By reducing the clock speed of the processor.

What is the difference between pipelining and parallel processing?

• Pipelining is the overlap of instruction execution, while parallel processing is the simultaneous execution of multiple tasks.

• Pipelining is the same as parallel processing.

• Pipelining is the execution of multiple tasks simultaneously.

• Parallel processing is the overlap of instruction execution.

What are the potential challenges or limitations of pipelining?

• Data dependencies, branch instructions, and resource contention.

• Data hazards, instruction hazards, and control hazards.

• Parallelism, cache size, and instruction level parallelism.

• Memory access, clock speed, and instruction set.

How can pipelining be implemented in a CPU architecture?

• By executing instructions sequentially without any parallelism.

• By increasing the clock speed of the CPU.

• By reducing the number of stages in the instruction execution process.

• By breaking down the execution of instructions into multiple stages and allowing each stage to work on a different instruction simultaneously.