CHAPTER 2: INSIDE THE PC Page#1

Processor Design

RISC:
Pronounced risk, acronym for Reduced Instruction Set Computer, a type
of microprocessor that recognizes a relatively limited number of
instructions.
Advantages:
• Advantage of reduced instruction set computers is that they can
execute their instructions very fast because the instructions are so
simple.
• RISC chips require fewer transistors, which makes them cheaper to design and
produce.
• By making the hardware simpler, RISC architectures put a greater burden on the
software.
• A new microprocessor can be developed and tested more quickly if one of
its aims is to be less complicated.
• Operating system and application programmers who use the
microprocessor's instructions will find it easier to develop code with a
smaller instruction set.
• The simplicity of RISC allows more freedom to choose how to use the
space on a microprocessor.
• Higher-level language compilers produce more efficient code than
formerly because they have always tended to use the smaller set of
instructions to be found in a RISC computer.

CISC:
• Pronounced sisk, and stands for Complex Instruction Set Computer.
• Most personal computers use a CISC architecture, in which the CPU
supports as many as two hundred instructions.
• Most processors in Mainframe computers and PCs have CISC design.
• A CISC computers machine language offers programmers a wide variety
of instructions from which to choose:
1. Add
2. Multiply
3. Compare
4. Move data, and so on.
• CISC computers reflect the evolution of increasingly sophisticated
machine languages.

îÍf¨m
 CHAPTER 2: INSIDE THE PC Page#2

Parallel Processing
• The simultaneous use of more than one CPU to execute a program.(The
concept of using multiple processors in the same computer is known as
parallel processing.
• Ideally, parallel processing makes a program run faster because there are
more engines (CPUs) running it.
• In practice, it is often difficult to divide a program in such a way that
separate CPUs can execute different portions without interfering with each
other.
• With single-CPU computers, it is possible to perform parallel processing
by connecting the computers in a network. However, this type of parallel
processing requires very sophisticated software called distributed
processing software.
• Note that parallel processing differs from multitasking, in which a single
CPU executes several programs at once.
• Most computers have just one CPU, but some models have several.
There are even computers with thousands of CPUs. Examples:
1. Supercomputers
2. And Mainframes
• Parallel processing on such large scale is referred to as MPP(Massively
Parallel Processing).
• These super-fast supercomputers have sufficient computing capacity to
attack applications that have been beyond that of computers with
traditional computer designs.
• Parallel processing introduced:
1. Multiprogramming
2. Multiprocessing
• Parallel processing is also called parallel computing.

îÍf¨m
 CHAPTER 2: INSIDE THE PC Page#3

Cache Memory

• A cache (pronounced CASH) is a place to store something temporarily.

• The files you automatically request by looking at a Web page are stored
on your hard disk in a cache subdirectory under the directory for your
browser (for example, Internet Explorer).
• When you return to a page you've recently looked at, the browser can get
it from the cache rather than the original server, saving you time and the
network the burden of some additional traffic.
• You can usually vary the size of your cache, depending on your particular
browser.
• Computers include caches at several levels of operation, including cache
memory and a disk cache.

Cache memory is random access memory (RAM) that a computer

microprocessor can access more quickly than it can access regular RAM. As the
microprocessor processes data, it looks first in the cache memory and if it finds
the data there (from a previous reading of data), it does not have to do the more
time-consuming reading of data from larger memory.

In addition to cache memory, one can think of RAM itself as a cache of memory
for hard disk storage since all of RAM's contents come from the hard disk initially
when you turn your computer on and load the operating system (you are loading
it into RAM) and later as you start new applications and access new data. RAM
can also contain a special area called a disk cache that contains the data most
recently read in from the hard disk.

A memory cache, sometimes called a cache store or RAM cache, is a portion of

memory made of high-speed static RAM (SRAM) instead of the slower and
cheaper dynamic RAM (DRAM) used for main memory. Memory caching is
effective because most programs access the same data or instructions over and
over. By keeping as much of this information as possible in SRAM, the computer
avoids accessing the slower DRAM.

îÍf¨m
CHAPTER 2: INSIDE THE PC Page#4

îÍf¨m