Computer Architecture WGU C952 Study Guide 2024

information revolution answers- Computers have led to a third revolution for civilization, with the _________________ taking its place alongside the agricultural and the industrial revolutions. Personal Computer (PC) answers- A computer designed for use by an individual, usually incorporating a graphics display, a keyboard, and a mouse. Server answers- A computer used for running larger programs for multiple users, often simultaneously, and typically accessed only via a network. Supercomputer answers- A class of computers with the highest performance and cost; they are configured as servers and typically cost tens to hundreds of millions of dollars. Embedded computer answers- A computer inside another device used for running one predetermined application or collection of software. processor cores answers- Many embedded processors are designed using ______________, a version of a processor written in a hardware description language, such as Verilog or VHDL. Personal mobile devices (PMDs) answers- are small wireless devices to connect to the Internet; they rely on batteries for power, and software is installed by downloading apps. Conventional examples are smart phones and tablets. Warehouse Scale Computers (WSCs) answers- Taking over from the conventional server is Cloud Computing, which relies upon giant datacenters that are now known as__________________________ Cloud computing answers- refers to large collections of servers that provide services over the Internet; some providers rent dynamically varying numbers of servers as a utility. Software as a Service (SaaS) answers- delivers software and data as a service over the Internet, usually via a thin program such as a browser that runs on local client devices, instead of binary code that must be installed, and runs wholly on that device. Examples include web search and social networking. Multicore microprocessor: answers- A microprocessor containing multiple processors ("cores") in a single integrated circuit. Terabyte (TB): answers- Originally 1,099,511,627,776 (240) bytes, although communications and secondary storage systems developers started using the term to mean 1,000,000,000,000 (1012) bytes. tebibyte (TiB) answers- To reduce confusion, we now use the term _______________ for 240 bytes, defining terabyte (TB) to mean 1012 bytes. Moore's Law . answers- __________________ states that integrated circuit resources double every 18-24 months abstractions answers- A major productivity technique for hardware and software is to use________________ to characterize the design at different levels of representation; lower-level details are hidden to offer a simpler model at higher levels. common case answers- Making the________________ fast will tend to enhance performance better than optimizing the rare case. parallel answers- Since the dawn of computing, computer architects have offered designs that get more performance by computing operations in _______________. pipelining answers- A particular pattern of parallelism is so prevalent in computer architecture that it merits its own name: _______________ , which moves multiple operations through hardware units that each do a piece of an operation, akin to water flowing through a pipeline. prediction answers- The idea of _________________ is that, in some cases it can be faster on average to guess and start working rather than wait until you know for sure, assuming that the mechanism to recover from a misprediction is not too expensive and your prediction is relatively accurate. hierarchy of memories answers- Architects have found that they can address conflicting demands of fast, large, and cheap memory with a hierarchy of memories, with the fastest, smallest, and most expensive memory per bit at the top of the hierarchy and the slowest, largest, and cheapest per bit at the bottom. dependable answers- Since any physical device can fail, we make systems dependable by including redundant components that can take over when a failure occurs and to help detect failures. Systems software answers- Software that provides services that are commonly useful, including operating systems, compilers, loaders, and assemblers. Operating system answers- Supervising program that manages the resources of a computer for the benefit of the programs that run on that computer. Compiler answers- A program that translates high-level language statements into assembly language statements. binary numbers answers- The two symbols for these two letters are the numbers 0 and 1, and we commonly think of the computer language as numbers in base 2, or binary numbers. Binary digit answers- Also called a bit. One of the two numbers in base 2 (0 or 1) that are the components of information. Instruction answers- A command that computer hardware understands and obeys Assembler answers- A program that translates a symbolic version of instructions into the binary version. Assembly language answers- A symbolic representation of machine instructions. Machine language answers- A binary representation of machine instructions. High-level programming language answers- A portable language such as C, C++, Java, or Visual Basic that is composed of words and algebraic notation that can be translated by a compiler into assembly language. Input device answers- A mechanism through which the computer is fed information, such as a keyboard. Output device answers- A mechanism that conveys the result of a computation to a user, such as a display, or to another computer. liquid crystal display (LCD) answers- A display technology using a thin layer of liquid polymers that can be used to transmit or block light according to whether a charge is applied. Active matrix display answers- A liquid crystal display using a transistor to control the transmission of light at each individual pixel. bit map answers- The image is composed of a matrix of picture elements, or pixels, which can be represented as a matrix of bits, called a ____________ Pixel answers- The smallest individual picture element. Screens are composed of hundreds of thousands to millions of pixels, organized in a matrix. raster refresh buffer answers- The computer hardware support for graphics consists mainly of a raster refresh buffer, or frame buffer, to store the bit map. Integrated circuit answers- Also called a chip. A device combining dozens to millions of transistors. Central processor unit (CPU): answers- Also called processor. The active part of the computer, which contains the datapath and control and which adds numbers, tests numbers, signals I/O devices to activate, and so on. Datapath answers- The component of the processor that performs arithmetic operations. Control answers- The component of the processor that commands the datapath, memory, and I/O devices according to the instructions of the program. Memory answers- The storage area in which programs are kept when they are running and that contains the data needed by the running programs. Dynamic random access memory (DRAM): answers- Memory built as an integrated circuit; it provides random access to any location. Access times are 50 nanoseconds and cost per gigabyte in 2012 was $5 to $10. Cache memory: answers- A small, fast memory that acts as a buffer for a slower, larger memory