2006 Paper 7 Question 1
Comparative Architectures
(a) Give three fundamental differences between RISC and CISC processor design
and explain why RISC might lead to improved performance. [6 marks]
(b) Members of a binary compatible family of processors may have rather different
hardware designs. Define this term and explain what variations between the
processors in a family might exist, why they exist and how they are made to
appear the same. [7 marks]
(c) Processor families vary in the number of user registers in their basic
programming models. How does this affect performance and what extensions
are used, both above and below the programming model, to provide more
register storage? [7 marks]