CCCS #9 CPU Designs

This video is on processor design and what makes them so fast.

This link is to video #10

  1. Some processors are mentioned with additional circuits (Pentium mmx for example). What might be the advantage of these kind of processors and what two uses are mentioned?
  2. Why do most processors keep all the old instruction set instructions when they have a new instruction set designed?
  3. Why does a potential bottle-neck occur between RAM and CPU?
  4. What is Cache memory and how can having Cache memory make operations in the processor faster?
  5. What is a Dirty Bit?
  6. Describe Instruction Pipe-lining and why it could be an advantage.
  7. What is Speculative Execution and how might it lead to a Pipeline Flush?
  8. What do we mean when we say a processor is Quad Core?
  9. Super Computers are often measured in FLOPS - what is a FLOP?