suomeksi Kääntöpuolella suomeksi

581365-8 Computer Organization II, Exam 8.4.2011

You may answer in English, Finnish, or Swedish.
Write in each answer sheet your name, signature, id-number, course name, and page nr/total nr of pages.
Write down any assumptions you need to make. One or two page answer is sufficient for each problem.
  1. [9 p] Explain the following concepts (what they are, how do they work)
    1. Bus arbitration
    2. TLB
    3. Superscalar processing
    4. [3 p] MESI protocol

  2. [9 p] Two-way set-associative write-back cache. Assume that cache is full. Assume now a read reference to variable Top in (linear, physical) memory address 0x2345ABC0.
    1. [5 p] Where in the cache may the value for variable Top be located? How does the cache know, if the value of variable Top is in the cache or not?
    2. [4 p] What happens in the system, if the value of variable Top is not in cache? Which cache implementation policies are involved and what happens because of them?

  3. [9 p] Dependencies. For each of the following instruction dependency types, (i) describe the dependency type and when it can occur, (ii) good (machine level) example, and (iii) at least one solution method on how to reduce the performance decradation caused by this dependency. Explain how the solution method (iii) works with your example (ii) and how instruction execution is speeded up in that specific case..
    1. data dependency
    2. control dependency
    3. antidependency

  4. [9 p] Control
    1. [1 p] What problem is solved by control?
    2. How is hardwired control implemented?
    3. How is microprogrammed control implemented?
    4. What advantages/disadvantages are there in hardwired control as compared to microprogrammed control
    5. What is the difference between horizontal and vertical microcode? Give an example.