Extra supervision questions...

huhu... my supervisees are going to hate me for doing this... but i've given
them 8 extra questions to do for their first supervision, which is a week
from now...

and the questions are:

Q1) RISC and CISC are two different architectures.. Why are the differences,
the way that they are? Hence, what is the single key feature that
differentiates the two?

Q2) Are the x86 microprocessors RISC/CISC? Why?

Q3) Which is better (computing performance wise)? RISC/CISC? Why?

Q4) Besides RISC/CISC, try to name two other processor architectures. Identify
the key feature that differentiates them.

Q5) If you were asked to design a working microprocessor with a 2-stage
pipeline, which stages would they be? How? Why?

Q6) Besides "data forwarding" and "pipeline stalling", how else can we reduce
the problem of data hazards?

Q7) Besides "branch prediction" and "pipeline stalling", how else can we
reduce the problem of control hazards?

Q8) Why does the Pentium4 (P4) have a 20 stage pipeline? Why did the P3
outperform the P4 initially?

i don't expect any of them to actually finish the questions... and i certainly
do not expect them to get any of it right... (incidentally, most of these
questions do not have a right answer)... i've done them myself, and the
answers are typically 1 or 2 sentences only...

all i want is to get them to look at something that's outside of books/lecture
notes/tripos, and to think... that's what i was taught to do... force the
students to think...

Q4 and Q8 are pretty straight forward... as long as they've understood their
material, they should be able to answer it.. Q1,2,3 are argumentative... so,
whatever their answers are, i'll question it... Q5,6,7 are tricky... the
obvious answers are not going to be enough...

i just want to see how far they can go... i've been lucky to have been given a
whole bunch of good students this year (1st + 2.1s)... so, i'm hoping that
they'll be able to handle extra stuff... i'll adjust the difficulty level for
the next supervision, if this one isn't suitable...