The University of the South Pacific

EE326 Embedded Systems

HOMEWORK 2 Date: July 2018 Dr. Assaf M.

Question 1 A certain IBM 970 processor has a system clock frequency of 1.2 GHz.
What is the clock period?

The clock period is one divided by the clock frequency. Clock period T = (1 ÷ f) where f
is the clock frequency. T = 1.0 ÷ (1.2 x 109) = 0.833 x 10-9 = 833 picoseconds.

Question 2 Describe the system bus and its primary components.

The system bus is a two-way communication channel that connects all computer
system modules. The system bus consists of transmission lines that can carry on data
(data bus), memory addresses (address bus), and control signals (control bus).

Question 3 A high-end machine requires 1.5 μsec (microseconds) to process each

64-byte data record in a database. How long will it take to process a database
containing 100 x 108 records?

(1.5 microseconds per record) x (100 x 108 records) = (1.5 x 10-6) x (100 x 108) = 150 x
102 seconds = 15,000 seconds = 250 minutes.

Question 4 What are the characteristic requirements of the CPU and the system bus
in order to maximize system performance?

 Data bus width  CPU word size.

 CPU clock rate  Bus clock rate (difficult to achieve).

Question 5 Compile by hand the following C statements into VAX 11 assembly

language using one or more of the following three instructions:
ADD A, B, C; Add A and B and store result in C
MPY A, B, B; Multiply A and B and store result in B
MOV A, B; Move A to B
Assume that all variables are integers.

a. U = V ; W = U + Y ;
Answer: MOV V, U; Move V to U
ADD U, Y, W; Add U and Y and store result in W

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 The University of the South Pacific

EE326 Embedded Systems

HOMEWORK 2 Date: July 2018 Dr. Assaf M.

b. V = (W + X) * (Y + Z) ;
ADD W, X, V; Add W and X and store result in V
ADD Y, Z, T; Add Y and Z and store result in T (temporary location)
MPY T, V, V; Multiply T and V and store result in V

Note that in all cases you must create temporary locations such as T if you need to
store an intermediate result. You can also use the location of the result as a temporary
storage location.

Question 6 Describe an interrupt and how it is processed.

An interrupt is a special signal generated by I/O devices or software, sent to the

operating system to indicate that a request or an event has occurred that requires
immediate attention. If the CPU detects an interrupt signal, the execution of the current
program is suspended and an interrupt handler is called. When the interrupt handler
returns, then execution of the suspended program is resumed.

Question 7 Turnaround time is defined as the sum of the CPU time and waiting time.
Given the following 5 jobs that are waiting for CPU availability to be executed:

Assuming a Round Robin scheduling algorithm with the following timeline:

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 The University of the South Pacific

EE326 Embedded Systems

HOMEWORK 2 Date: July 2018 Dr. Assaf M.

a. Compute the waiting time and turn around time for every job.

b. Compute the average waiting time and turnaround time?

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