There is symmetric multiprocessing, and there is also asymmetric multiprocessing. What are the advantages and disadvantages of using a number of different processors at the same time?

Examples may be used to distinguish between scalar and superscale CPUs. The complexity of superscalar processing is highly proportional to the amount of time required to finish it. A few difficulties with the superscalar processor must be addressed as soon as possible.

Consider a 32-bit microprocessor, with a 16-bit external data bus, driven by an 8-MHz input clock. Assume that this microprocessor has a bus cycle whose minimum duration equals four input clock cycles. What is the maximum data transfer rate across the bus that this microprocessor can sustain in bytes/s? To increase its performance, would it be better to make its external data bus 32 bits or to double the external clock fre- quency supplied to the microprocessor? State any other assumptions you make and explain. Hint: Determine the number of bytes that can be transferred per bus cycle.

Describe as many techniques used to achieve hardware parallelism (to improve processorperformance) in a short paragraph.

As a simple model of a bus-based multiprocessor system without caching, suppose that one instruction in every four references memory, and that a memory reference occupies the bus for an entire instruction time. If the bus is busy, the requesting CPU is put into a FIFO queue. How much faster will a 64-CPU system run than a 1-CPU system?

Provide details to illustrate whether interrupt-driven or non-interrupt-driven OSes are faster.

We may assume that the number of accessible cores in modern CPUs is doubled with each new generation every 18 months. How much more off-chip memory bandwidth would a CPU released in three years need in order to maintain the same per-core performance?

How does pipelining improve the performance of a processor? Discuss the key benefits and limitations of pipelined architectures.

Under what circumstances does Round Robin Scheduling provide the lowest CPU usage rate?