Practice The Challenge Of Control Flow (4.1.3) - Branches and Limits to Pipelining

Practice: The Challenge of Control Flow

Lesson 4.1.3Branches and Limits to Pipelining

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8 questions

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6 sample questions

Question 1.
What is a branch instruction?
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Think of examples like if statements or loops.
Question 2.
What happens during a control hazard?
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How does this affect processing efficiency?
3Question 3.
What is the main problem caused by branch instructions in pipelined architectures?
- Increased memory usage
- Control hazards
- Higher clock speed
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Think about how the next instruction depends on the branch.
4Question 4.
True or False: Control hazards can lead to pipeline stalls.
- True
- False
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What happens when the outcome of a branch is not immediately available?
Question 5.
Describe how multiple branches can compound control hazards in a complex instruction sequence. What could be a potential architectural improvement to mitigate this?
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Think about how processors learn from past decisions to handle future predictions.
Question 6.
Consider a deep pipeline with many stages. How would you analyze the performance impact of a 10-cycle delay due to a control hazard? What solutions would you propose?
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Consider techniques that allow predictive fetching to reduce idle time in the pipeline.

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