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Computer Organization (0306-550) - Winter 2009
Homework Assignment #1 - Due December 17
1. What factors influence the choice of computing elements in a system?
2. What is the classification of computer/processor generations based on? Specify one
common characteristic from the first generation to the current fourth generation.
3. What are the similarities and differences between General Purpose Processors (GPPs)
and Embedded Processors?
4. Differentiate between independent RTN and dependant RTN.
5. First, give a concise definition of Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) including its main
purpose and then list five issues that must be fully specified by an ISA.
6. What types of information must be specified either explicitly or implicitly by every
machine (CPU) instruction?
7. Differentiate between load-store GPR ISAs and register-memory GPR ISAs. What
are the advantages of load-store GPR ISAs over register-memory GPR ISAs? What
are the disadvantages, if any?
8. Contrast between CISC and RISC ISAs in terms motivation/emphasis and ISA
characteristics.
9. Some processor ISAs have explicit instructions to extract an arbitrary field from a 32-
bit register and to place it in the least significant bits of another register. The figure
below shows the desired operation:
Find the shortest sequence of MIPS instructions that extracts a field for the constant
values i = 5 and j = 22 from register $t3 and places it in register $t0.
(Hint: It can be done in two instructions)
0
ij
31
i+1 bits
i – j bits
31 – j bits
Field
0
31
32 – ( i – j ) bits
0…. …. 0 0 0 Field
i – j bits
