VELAMMAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

QUESTION BANK
SUB.CODE: CS2253
SUB.NAME: COMPUTER ORGANIZATION AND ARCHITECTURE
YEAR: II SEMESTER: IV

UNIT I

BASIC STRUCTURE OF COMPUTERS

Part – A( 2Marks)

1. What is meant by the stored program concept?

2. What are the basic functional units of a computer?
3. What is the use of buffer register?
4. Define memory access time.
5. Write the differences between RISC and CISC.
6. What is meant by MAR and MDR?
7. What is an interrupt?
8. Why data bus is bidirectional in most microprocessors?
9. What do you mean by multiprogramming or multitasking?
10. Give the basic performance equation.
11. What are the limitations of assembly language?
12. What are the two techniques used to increase the clock rate R?
13. What are big-endian and little-endian representations?
14. What is the information conveyed by addressing modes?
15. What are the different types of addressing modes available?
16. What is indirect addressing mode?
17. What is indexed addressing mode?
18. Define auto increment mode of addressing?
19. Define auto decrement mode of addressing?
20. What are condition code flags?
21. What is the use of assembler directive?
22. What is meant by straight – line sequencing?
23. What is stack?
24. Which data structure is best supported using indirect addressing mode?
25. What are the differences between Stack and Queue?
26. What is byte addressable memory?
27. What is big endian and Little endian format?
28. Define clock rate?
29. What is the function of ALU?
30. Draw the full adder circuit using two half adders and give the truth table.
31. Why floating point number is more difficult to represent and process than integer?
32. What are the two approaches used to reduce delay in adders?
33. What is a carry look-ahead adder?
34. Discuss the principle behind the Booth’s algorithm?
35. How can we speed up the multiplication process?
36. What is bit pair recoding? Give an example.
37. What are the two methods of achieving the 2’s complement?
38. What is the advantage of using Booth algorithm?
39. Write the algorithm for restoring division.
40. Write the algorithm for non restoring division.
41. Define IEEE floating point single and double precision standard.
42. When can you say that a number is normalized?
43. Explain about the special values in floating point numbers.
44. Write the Add/subtract rule for floating point numbers.
45. Write the multiply rule for floating point numbers.
46. What is the purpose of guard bits?
47. What are the ways to truncate the guard bits?
48. Define carry save addition (CSA) process.
49. What are generated and propagate function?
50. What is excess-127 format?
51. What is a ripple carry adder?
52. Draw the structure of 4-bit MSI ALU circuit block.
53. What are the various ways of representing signed integers in the system?
54. Give the booth’s recoding and bit pair recoding of the number 1000011100100101.
55. When performing signed division, the sign of the remainder should be the same as the sign of
the dividend. Why?

Part – B
1. Explain the basic functional units of a simple computer. (8)
2. Explain the basic I/O operations of modern processors. (8)
3. Explain various addressing modes found in modern processors (16)
4. Explain various assembler directives used in assembly language program (8)
5. What are stack and queues? Explain its use and give its differences (10)
6. What are the various types of ISAs possible? Discuss. (8)
7. Discuss the various issues to be considered while designing the ISA of a processor.(8)
8. Write the difference between CISC and RISC.
9. Discuss the principle of operation of carry-look ahead adders. (8)
10. Discuss the non-restoring division algorithm. Simulate the same for 23/5. (8)
11. Multiply the following pair of signed 2’s complements numbers using bit pair
recoded multiplier: Multiplicand = 110011 Multiplier = 101100. (8)
12. With a neat sketch, Explain in detail about logic design for fast adders. (16)
13. Describe how the floating-point numbers are represented and used in digital
arithmetic operations. Give an example. (16)
14. Explain the representations of floating point numbers in detail. (6)
15. Design a multiplier that multiplies two 4-bit numbers. (6)
16. Give the block diagram of the hardware implementation of addition and subtraction
of signed number and explain its operations. (10)
17. Explain the working of floating point adder and subtractor. (10)
 UNIT II
BASIC PROCESSING UNIT

Part – A( 2Marks)

1. What are the limitations of super scalar device?

2. Define pipeline speedup.
3. What is a processor clock?
4. Write down the control sequence for Move (R1), R2.
5. What is the function of a TLB (translation look-aside buffer)?
6. What is the WMFC step needed when reading from or writing to the main memory?
7. Define register file.
8. Name the methods for generating the control signals.
9. Define hardwired control.
10. Discuss the principle of operation of a micro programmed control.
11. Differentiate micro programmed control from hardwired control.
12. Define parallelism in microinstruction.
13. What are the types of microinstructions available?
14. Differentiate horizontal microinstruction from vertical microinstruction.
15. What is MFC?
16. What is the principle of Nanoprogramming?
17. Write the various actions required to fetch a word from memory.
18. Write the control sequence for execution of the instruction Add(R3), R1.
19. Write the control sequence for an unconditional branch instruction.

Part – B
1. Give the organization of typical hardwired control unit and explain the functions
performed by the various blocks. (16)
2. With a neat block diagram, explain in detail about micro programmed control unit and
explain its operations. (16)
3. Explain the execution of an instruction with diagram. (8)
4. Explain the multiple bus organization in detail. (8)
5. Explain the instruction cycle highlighting the sub-cycles and sequence of steps to be
followed. (8)
6. Consider a processor is having single bus organization of the datapath inside a
processor. Write the sequence of control steps required for each of the following
instructions:
a) Add the (immediate) number NUM to register R1
b) Add the contents of memory location NUM to register R1.
c) Add the contents of the memory location whose address is at memory location
NUM to register R1.
 UNIT 3

PIPELINING

PART A

1. What is pipelining?
2. What are the major characteristics of a pipeline?
3. What is a pipeline hazard?
4. What is data hazard?
5. What is instruction or control hazard?
6. Define structural hazards.
7. What is side effect?
8. What do you mean by branch penalty?
9. What is branch folding?
10. What do you mean by delayed branching?
11. What are the two types of branch prediction techniques available?
12. What is the ideal speedup expected in a pipelined architecture with n stages. Justify
your answer.
13. Draw the structure of two stage instruction pipeline.
14. What is RAW hazard?
15. What is WAW hazard?
16. What is the use of branch prediction technique?
17. What is the use of pipelining?
18. What are the characteristics of the MIPS Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) that facilitate
pipelined execution?

PART B

1. Discuss the various hazards that might arise in a pipeline. What are the remedies
commonly adopted to overcome/minimize these hazards. (16)
2. Explain in detail about instruction execution characteristics. (16)
3. Explain the function of a six segment pipeline showing the time it takes to process
eight tasks. (10)
4. Highlight the solutions of instruction hazards. (6)
5. Define the terms "structural hazard", "control hazard", and "data hazard" in the context
of pipelines. Which of these hazards is addressed by a hardware branch predictor (which
guesses whether a branch will be taken or not)? For one of the other hazards, suggest a
way, either in software or hardware, the effect of that hazard could be reduced.
6. The five stages of the simple MIPS pipeline we covered in class are: instruction fetch,
instruction decode and register read, execute or calculate address, memory access, and
register write. Describe the purpose of each of these stages.
7. Define the terms "structural hazard", "control hazard", and "data hazard" in the context
of pipelines. Which of these hazards is addressed by a hardware branch predictor (which
guesses whether a branch will be taken or not)? For one of the other hazards, suggest a
way, either in software or hardware, the effect of that hazard could be reduced.

8. Define the terms "spatial locality" and "temporal locality", and explain how caches are
used to exploit them for a performance benefit. Be specific in the different ways that
caches exploit these two phenomena.
 UNIT IV
MEMORY SYSTEM

Part – A (2Marks)

1. Define Memory Access time for a computer system with two levels of caches.
2. How to construct an 8M * 32 memory using 512 K * 8 memory chips.
3. Write two advantages of MOS device.
4. List the factors that determine the storage device performance.
5. What will be the width of address and data buses for a 512K * 8 memory chip?
6. Define memory cycle time.
7. What is RAM?
8. What is cache memory?
9. Explain virtual memory.
10. List the various semiconductors RAMs?
11. What do you mean by static memories?
12. Define DRAM’s.
13. Define DDR SDRAM.
14. What is ROM?
15. What is the mapping procedures adopted in the organizatio n of a cache Memory?
16. Give the format for main memory address using direct mapping function for 4096
blocks
in main memory and 128 blocks in cache with 16 blocks per cache.
17. Give the format for main memory address using associative mapping function for
4096
blocks in main memory and 128 blocks in cache with 16 blocks per cache.
18. Give the format for main memory address using set associative mapping function for
4096 blocks in main memory and 128 blocks in cache with 16 blocks per cache.
19. Define Hit and Miss rate?
20. What are the enhancements used in the memory management?
21. What is meant by memory management unit?
22. What is meant by memory interleaving?
23. What do you mean by seek time?
24. What is disk controller?
25. What is RAID?
26. Define data stripping?
27. How the data is organized in the disk?
28. Define latency time.
29. What is the significance of TLB?
Part – B
1. Discuss the various mapping techniques used in cache memories. (8)
2. A computer system has a main memory consisting of 16 M words. It also has a
32Kword cache organized in the block-set-associative manner, with 4 blocks per set and
128 words per block.
a)Calculate the number of bits in each of the TAG, SET and WORD fields of the main
memory address format.
b)How will the main memory address look like for a fully associative mapped cache? (8)
3. Explain the concept of virtual memory with any one virtual memory management
technique. (8)
4. Give the basic cell of an associative memory and explain its operation. Show how
associative memories can be constructed using this basic cell. (8)
5. Give the structure of semiconductor RAM memories. Explain the read and write
operations in detail. (16)
6. Explain the organization of magnetic disks in detail. (8)
7. A digital computer has a memory unit of 64K*16 and a cache memory of 1K words.
The cache uses direct mapping with a block size of four words. How many bits are there
in the tag, index, block and word fields of the address format? How many blocks can the
caches accommodate? (10)
8. Explain the concept of memory hierarchy. (6)
9. Define the terms "spatial locality" and "temporal locality", and explain how caches are
used to exploit them for a performance benefit. Be specific in the different ways that
caches exploit these two phenomena.
10. Suppose physical addresses are 32 bits wide. Suppose there is a cache containing
256K words of data (not including tag bits), and each cache block contains 4 words. For
each of the following cache configurations,
a. direct mapped
b. 2-way set associative
c. 4-way set associative
d. fully associative
specify how the 32-bit address would be partitioned. For example, for a direct mapped
cache, you would need to specify which bits are used to select the cache entry and which
bits are used to compare against the tag stored in the cache entry.
11. Draw the implementation of the 2-way set associative version of the above cache, at
the level of detail shown in figure 7.19 on page 574 of the text. Be sure to include the
logic for selecting the desired word of the cache block.
12. Cache misses can be characterized as one of the following: compulsory misses,
capacity misses, and conflict misses. Describe how each of these kinds of misses can be
addressed in the hardware.
13. Suppose you own a computer that exhibits the following properties on the programs
that you run:
a)the pipeline can accept a new instruction every cycle
b)the cache can provide data every cycle (i.e. no penalty for cache hits)
c)the instruction cache miss rate is 2.5%
d)the data cache miss rate is 3.5%
e)30% of instructions are memory instructions
f)the cache miss penalty is 80 cycles.

Suppose, also, that you have decided to purchase a new computer. For the budget
allocated, you can either
 p urchase a machine with a processor and cache that is twice as fast as your current one
(memory speed is the same as the old machine, though), or
purchase a machine with a processor and cache that is the same speed as your old
machine but in which the cache is twice as large.

Assume, for the purposes of this problem, that the cache miss rate for the programs you
run will drop by 40% with this larger cache (although this is generally not true in the real
world). Which computer are you best off purchasing? Explain in detail, showing the
relative performance of each choice.

14. Describe the number of bits required in each entry of a TLB that has the following
characteristics:
a)Virtual addresses are 32 bits wide
b)Physical addresses are 31 bits wide
c)The page size is 2K bytes
d)The TLB contains 16 entries of the page table
e)The TLB is direct-mapped
 UNIT V
I/O ORGANIZATION

Part – A (2Marks)

1. What are the functions of I/O interface?

2. How does the processor handle an interrupt request?
3. What are the necessary operations needed to start an I/O operation using DMA?
4. What are the three types of channel usually found in large computers?
5. Why does a DMA have priority over the CPU when both request a memory transfer?
6. What is the advantage of using interrupt initiated data transfer?
7. Why do you need DMA?
8. What is the difference between subroutine and interrupt service routine?
9. What is the need for interrupt masks?
10. How does bus arbitration typically works?
11. How does a processor handle an interrupt?
12. Distinguish synchronous bus and asynchronous bus.
13. Why I/O devices cannot be directly be connected to the system bus?
14. What are the major functions of I/O system?
15. What is an I/O interface?
16. Write the factors considered in designing an I/O subsystem?
17. Explain Direct Memory Access.
18. Define DMA controller.
19. What is polling?
20. What is the need of Interrupt controller?
21. What is a priority interrupt?
22. Define bus.
23. Define synchronous bus.
24. Define asynchronous bus.
25. State the differences between memory mapped I/O and I/O mapped I/O.
26. Define interrupt.
27. Define exception.
28. What are the different methods used for handling the situation when multiple
interrupts
occurs?
29. What is a privileged instruction?
30. What is bus arbitration?
31. What is port? What are the types of port available?
32. What is a parallel port?
33. What is a serial port?
34. What is PCI bus?
35. What is SCSI?
36. Define USB.
Part – B

1. Explain the functions to be performed by a typical I/O interface with a typical input
output
interface. (16)
2. Discuss the DMA driven data transfer technique. (8)
3. Discuss the operation of any two input devices (8)
4. Explain in detail about interrupt handling. (16)
5. Explain in detail about standard I/O interface. (16)
6. Describe the functions of SCSI with a neat diagram. (16)
7. What is the importance of I/O interface? Compare the features of SCSI and PCI
interfaces. (8)
8. Write note on the following.
a) Bus arbitration
b) Printer process communication
c) USB
d) DMA (16)
9. Explain the use of vectored interrupts in processes. Why is priority handling desired in
interrupt controllers? How does the different priority scheme work? (8)