Exam 4: Processor Technology and Architecture

In a(n) ____________________ instruction, the processor always departs from the normal execution sequence.

One action that occurs during the fetch cycle is incrementing a pointer to the location of the next instruction.

Conductive molecules are typically arranged in straight lines, generically called wires or ____________________.

Each clock cycle the CPU spends waiting for a slower device is called a ____.

A ____ instruction causes the processor to depart from sequential instruction order.

With bit strings, NOT treats each bit in the bit string as a separate Boolean value.

A(n) ____________________ instruction accepts two numeric inputs and produces their arithmetic sum.

The capability of an element or a substance to enable electron flow is called ____________________.

Why is clock rate a poor or incomplete measure of processor performance?

A ____ performs specific tasks that can be counted or measured.

The instruction pointer (IP) can also be called the "____________________."

The collection of instructions that a CPU can process is called the CPU's ____________________.

CPU and computer system clock rates are expressed in cycles per second, also called ____________________.

Discuss the issues with heat with respect to chips.

The word size of recent processor generations such as the Intel Core2 and IBM POWER 8 is ____________________ bits.

What are the 1-bit and 2-bit processing functions performed by gates?

Subsequent groups of bits after the first group in an instruction hold its input values, called ____.

____________________ transistors are a bridge between electrical and optical computer components.

Practical optical processors will probably appear first as full-fledged computer processors.

When manipulating single-precision floating-point numbers, CPU performance is measured in ____.