ADVANCED COMPUTER
ARCHITECTURE EXAM QUESTIONS
WITH VERIFIED ANSWERS. A+ GRADE
2025/2026.
Structural, data and control - ANS Name the three different types of hazards
A structural hazard occurs when two (or more) instructions that are already in pipeline need
the same resource - ANS What is a structural hazard?
A control hazard occurs when deciding on control action depends on previous instruction -
ANS What is a control hazard?
A data hazard occurs when an instruction depends on the result of a prior instruction still in the
pipeline - ANS What is a data hazard?
1 @COPYRIGHT 2025/2026 ALLRIGHTS RESERVED
,Temporal locality refers to the reuse of specific data, and/or resources, within a short time. -
ANS What is temporal locality?
Spatial locality refers to the use of data elements within relatively close storage locations. -
ANS What is spatial locality?
More comparators and an output multiplexer are needed - ANS Why is an associative cache
slower than a direct mapped cache?
Because the slowest pipeline stage determines the maximum speed of the whole pipeline, and
main memory is very slow - ANS Why are caches needed in a pipelined architecture?
Compulsory, Capacity and Conflict - ANS Name the three types of cache misses
AMAT = HitTime + MissRate * MissPenalty - ANS Give an expression for the Average Memory
Access Time of a cache
2 @COPYRIGHT 2025/2026 ALLRIGHTS RESERVED
, 1. Larger block size
2. Higher associativity
3. Use a victim buffer
4. Hardware prefetching
5. Use a skewed associative cache - ANS Name (five) ways to reduce the cache miss rate in
hardware
Compulsory - ANS Which of the cache miss types does a larger block size reduce?
Conflict - ANS Which of the cache miss types does higher associativity reduce?
Conflict - ANS Which of the cache miss types does a victim buffer reduce?
Increasing associativity is considerably more complicated and expensive - ANS Why is a
victim buffer more attractive than increasing associativity to reduce conflict misses?
Compulsory - ANS Which of the cache miss types does hardware prefetching reduce?
3 @COPYRIGHT 2025/2026 ALLRIGHTS RESERVED
ARCHITECTURE EXAM QUESTIONS
WITH VERIFIED ANSWERS. A+ GRADE
2025/2026.
Structural, data and control - ANS Name the three different types of hazards
A structural hazard occurs when two (or more) instructions that are already in pipeline need
the same resource - ANS What is a structural hazard?
A control hazard occurs when deciding on control action depends on previous instruction -
ANS What is a control hazard?
A data hazard occurs when an instruction depends on the result of a prior instruction still in the
pipeline - ANS What is a data hazard?
1 @COPYRIGHT 2025/2026 ALLRIGHTS RESERVED
,Temporal locality refers to the reuse of specific data, and/or resources, within a short time. -
ANS What is temporal locality?
Spatial locality refers to the use of data elements within relatively close storage locations. -
ANS What is spatial locality?
More comparators and an output multiplexer are needed - ANS Why is an associative cache
slower than a direct mapped cache?
Because the slowest pipeline stage determines the maximum speed of the whole pipeline, and
main memory is very slow - ANS Why are caches needed in a pipelined architecture?
Compulsory, Capacity and Conflict - ANS Name the three types of cache misses
AMAT = HitTime + MissRate * MissPenalty - ANS Give an expression for the Average Memory
Access Time of a cache
2 @COPYRIGHT 2025/2026 ALLRIGHTS RESERVED
, 1. Larger block size
2. Higher associativity
3. Use a victim buffer
4. Hardware prefetching
5. Use a skewed associative cache - ANS Name (five) ways to reduce the cache miss rate in
hardware
Compulsory - ANS Which of the cache miss types does a larger block size reduce?
Conflict - ANS Which of the cache miss types does higher associativity reduce?
Conflict - ANS Which of the cache miss types does a victim buffer reduce?
Increasing associativity is considerably more complicated and expensive - ANS Why is a
victim buffer more attractive than increasing associativity to reduce conflict misses?
Compulsory - ANS Which of the cache miss types does hardware prefetching reduce?
3 @COPYRIGHT 2025/2026 ALLRIGHTS RESERVED
