Computer Architecture Unit 2

Self Assessment Questions

11. Performance of the computer is improved by ___________________.
12. The ability of the servers to expand its processors and disks is known
as ____________________.
13. The main objective of ______________________ is to extend beyond
the instruction implementation to cut the total time taken to complete
the instruction series.
14. ____________________ declares that the item referred in the recent
times has potential to be accessed in the near future.
15. ____________________ states that the items nearby the location of
the recently used items may also be referred close together in time.

2.6 Power Consumption

Power consumption is another important design criterion that affects the
design of the modern computers. The power efficiency can normally be
dealt for performance or cost benefits. Recent processor designs put more
emphasis on the power efficiency. Also, in the upcoming world of totally
embedded computers, power efficiency has been the major concern of the
computer designers.
It is now widely accepted that power is the primary concern of the modern
microprocessors, rather it has become a constraint in most of the cases.
Power is a function of both static and dynamic power. Static Power is
proportional to the number of transistors, whereas Dynamic Power is
generally the product of the transistor switching and the switching rate.
Static power is generally the concern at the design stage, while when
operating, dynamic power is the dominant energy consumer.
Technologists estimated the rough percentage of usage by each component
of the computer. This is represented in the following figure 2.9, which shows
CPUs only drawing about 5 percent of a PC's total power.

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Computer Architecture Unit 2

Figure 2.9: Pie Chart Showing Power Consumption Distribution

Most techniques used for improved performance, viz. multiprogramming and

multithreading, will of course increase the energy consumption. But the
question here is: Does it increase power consumption at a higher rate than
the increase in performance.
Unfortunately, the current techniques used by the programmers to improve
the performance are inefficient from the point of view of power consumption.
This occurs due to the following two characteristics:
1. Delivering multiple instructions earns some overhead in logic that
develops faster than the issue rate develops. Thus, without voltage
reductions to decrease power, it is probable to lead to lower rate of
performance per watt.
2. There has been observed a growing gap between high issue rates and
continual performance. The number of switching transistor rate is
proportional to the high issue rates and the performance is proportional
to the sustained performance. This causes a growing gap between both
of them leading to increased energy consumption per unit. This gap
arises from many issues.
For example, if we want to sustain four instructions per clock, we must
fetch more, issue more, and initiate execution on more than four
instructions. This will create the same situation of gap and such
techniques cannot improve the long-term power efficiency.

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Computer Architecture Unit 2

Self Assessment Questions

16. ____________________ can normally be dealt for performance or cost
benefits.
17. ____________________ is the product of the transistor switching and
the switching rate.
18. The number of switching transistor rate is proportional to ___________
and the performance is proportional to ______________.

2.7 Summary
Let us recapitulate the important concepts discussed in this unit:
 There are two types of execution – concurrent and parallel.
 Computer design is an activity that converts the architecture design of
the computer into a programming structure implementation of a
particular organisation.
 Computer technology has made drastic changes in the past 60 years
when the first general-purpose computer was invented.
 Desktop computers have the largest market in terms of costs. It varies
from low-end systems to very high-end heavily configured computer
systems.
 The world’s first designer was Charles Baggage and is considered as
the father of computers.
 Computer designer needs to determine the attributes that are necessary
for a new computer, then design a computer to maximise the
performance.
 The Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) is the part of the processor that is
visible to the programmer or compiler writer.
 Performance of the computer is improved by taking advantage of
parallelism.
 Focussing on the common case will work positively both for power and
resource allocation, thus, leading to advancement.

2.8 Glossary
 CISC: Complex instruction set computer
 Computer designer: A person who design CPUs or computers that are
actually built and are into considerable use and influence the further
development of computer designs.

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Computer Architecture Unit 2

 Desktop computers: These are in the form of personal computers (also

known as PCs) and workstations.
 Embedded computer: A computer system designed to perform a
particular function or task.
 Instruction Set Architecture (ISA): A part of the processor that is
visible to the programmer or compiler writer.
 Integrated circuits: An electronic circuit manufactured by the patterned
diffusion of trace elements into the surface of a thin substrate of
semiconductor material.
 RISC: Reduced instruction set computer
 Supercomputers: These are high-performance computers for scientific
computing.
 VLIW: Very long instruction word

2.9 Terminal Questions

1. Describe the three types of computer markets.
2. Explain the characteristics of embedded computers.
3. Who is a computer designer? Explain the job of a computer designer.
4. What are the components of Instruction Set architecture? Discuss in
brief.
5. Explain the technology trends in computer design.
6. Discuss briefly the quantitative principles in computer design.
7. Elucidate Amdahl’s Law.

2.10 Answers
Self Assessment Questions
1. Microprocessor
2. Main-frame
3. True
4. Minimum cost
5. Charles Baggage
6. ISA
7. 16
8. Complex instruction set computer
9. False
10. Integrated circuits or microchips

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11. Adopting parallelism

12. Scalability
13. Pipelining
14. Temporal Locality
15. Spatial Locality
16. Power efficiency
17. Dynamic Power
18. High issue rates, sustained performance

Terminal Questions
1. Desktop computers have the largest market in terms of costs. It varies
from low-end systems to very high-end heavily configured computer
systems. Refer Section 2.2.
2. An embedded system is a single purpose computer embedded in a
devise to control some particular function of that bigger devise. The
performance requirement of an embedded application is real-time
execution. Refer Section 2.2.
3. Computer Designer is a person who has designed CPUs or computers
that were actually built and came into considerable use and influenced
the further development of computer designs. Refer Section 2.3.
4. Architecture covers all three aspects of computer design – instruction
set architecture, organisation, and hardware. Refer Section 2.3.
5. Technology trends need to be studied on a regular basis in order to
cope with the dynamic and rapidly changing market. The instruction set
should be designed such to adapt the rapid changes of the technology.
Refer Section 2.4.
6. Quantitative principles in computer design are: Take Advantage of
Parallelism, Principle of Locality, Focus on the Common Case and
Amdahl’s Law. Refer Section 2.5.
7. Amdahl’s law states that the performance improvement to be gained
from using some faster mode of execution is limited by the fraction of
the time the faster mode can be used. Refer Section 2.5.

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