Which of the following is a set of data processing elements that increases the performance in a computer by
overlapping the steps of different instructions?
A.
pipelining
B.
complex-instruction-set-computer (CISC)
C.
reduced-instruction-set-computer (RISC)
D.
multitasking
Explanation:
Pipelining is a natural concept in everyday life, e.g. on an assembly line. Consider the assembly of a car:
assume that certain steps in the assembly line are to install the engine, install the hood, and install the wheels
(in that order, with arbitrary interstitial steps). A car on the assembly line can have only one of the three steps
done at once. After the car has its engine installed, it moves on to having its hood installed, leaving the engine
installation facilities available for the next car. The first car then moves on to wheel installation, the second car
to hood installation, and a third car begins to have its engine installed. If engine installation takes 20 minutes,
hood installation takes 5 minutes, and wheel installation takes 10 minutes, then finishing all three cars when
only one car can be assembled at once would take 105 minutes. On the other hand, using the assembly line,
the total time to complete all three is 75 minutes. At this point, additional cars will come off the assembly line at
20 minute increments. In computing, a pipeline is a set of data processing elements connected in series, so
that the output of one element is the input of the next one. The elements of a pipeline are often executed in
parallel or in time-sliced fashion; in that case, some amount of buffer storage is often inserted between
elements. Pipelining is used in processors to allow overlapping execution of multiple instructions within the
same circuitry. The circuitry is usually divided into stages, including instruction decoding, arithmetic, and
register fetching stages, wherein each stage processes one instruction at a time. The following were not correct
answers: CISC: is a CPU design where single instructions execute several low-level operations (such as a load
from memory, an arithmetic operation, and a memory store) within a single instruction. RISC: is a CPU design
based on simplified instructions that can provide higher performance as the simplicity enables much faster
execution of each instruction. Multitasking: is a method where multiple tasks share common processing
resources, such as a CPU, through a method of fast scheduling that gives the appearance of parallelism, but in
reality only one task is being performed at any one time.KRUTZ, Ronald L. & VINES, Russel D., The CISSP Prep Guide: Mastering the Ten Domains of Computer
Security, pages 188-189.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pipeline_(computing)