Spring 2018 EE380 Assignment 0 Solution
For this question, check all that apply.
Which of the following five statements about current computer hardware is/are
true
?
The internet is a WAN
A typical PC now has at least 2000MB of main memory
An optical mouse actually contains a high-speed camera
The red, green, and blue portions of an LCD pixel are actually separate elements
A Hard Disk should outlast an SSD in an application that is continually rewriting data
Here's one to look up in the history reference materials.... Which of the following folks is now generally credited with implementing the first floating-point arithmetic?
Bill Gates
Alan Turing
Konrad Zuse
John von Neumann
Grace Murray Hopper
In 1999, AMD's K7 (the original Athlon) contained about 22,000,000 transistors. Given that, about how many of those processors could fit on a chip using the state-of-the-art technologies that AMD currently uses for their Epyc 7601 chip? (Hint: you can guess correctly based on knowing how many years were between the two parts being released.)
1
10
100
1,000
10,000
For this question, check all that apply.
Which of the following five choices
is/are
among the "eight great ideas" discussed in class and the text's first chapter?
Parallel processing
Optimizing for the common cases
Programming in high-level languages
Use of a state machine to implement control logic
Anticipating how computer technology will change over time
For this question, check all that apply.
Which of the following statements about how computer technology has been changing
over the last few decades
is/are
true
?
Main memory has been getting faster
The number of transistors/chip is increasing
SSDs are starting to replace hard disk drives
Power consumption per transistor has been decreasing
Supercomputers on the Top500 list nearly double performance every year
Computer architecture is a field in which lifelong learning plays a critical role, in part because many aspects of computer architecture are
expected to change
in fundamental ways throughout your career. A key reason is found in how performance of different subsystems changes over time. Some years ago, computers often accessed instructions and data directly from main memory; briefly explain why computers now have a memory hierarchy.
Although main memory and processing elements are both getting exponentially faster over time, the exponent for memory is much smaller. Instead of several memory accesses per add, now it's a thousand or more adds per access. A heirarchy of smaller, faster, memories helps hide the delay by avoiding some main memory references.
For this question, check all that apply.
Which of the following things
is/are
associated with an Instruction Set Architecture (ISA)?
Machine Code
Assembly Language
Processor clock frequency
High-level programming language
Number of clock cycles/instruction
What is the meaning of "multi-core processor?"
A processor chip that contains multiple processors (processing elements). "core" == "processing element on a chip"
Most cell phones now use a pouch battery that is permanently glued inside rather than an individually-packaged user-interchangeable battery. Broader impact refers to potential benefit, or harm, to society as a whole. Briefly
describe one negative broader impact
of consumer devices using permanently glued-in batteries and include a
URL for an article supporting your claim
:
Lots of choices here, and any one is ok with a URL. For example, this generates more toxic waste by causing devices to be discarded when their batteries die, and causes problem in sorting out the batteries from other (electronics) waste.
For this question, check all that apply.
Here's something you know from EE280: Which of the following logic equations implement a multiplexor with two inputs, i0 and i1, and one select line, s?
((s OR (NOT i0)) AND (s OR i1))
((i1 AND (NOT s)) OR (i0 AND s))
((i1 AND s) OR (i0 AND (NOT s)))
((s AND (NOT i1)) OR (s AND i0))
(((NOT s) AND i0) OR (s AND i1))
Computer Organization and Design.