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GATE CSE Computer Organization PYQ

GATE CSE Computer Organization PYQ
Q1 | GATE 2021 Set-1

Consider a computer system with a byte-addressable primary memory of size 232bytes. Assume the
computer system has a direct-mapped cache of size 32 KB (1 KB = 210bytes), and each cache block is
of size 64 bytes. The size of the tag field is __ bits.
Show Answer With Best Explanation
Answer: 17
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More Discussion Explanation On YouTube Cache Help-Line

Consider the following instruction sequence where registers R1, R2 and R3 are general purpose and
MEMORY[X] denotes the content at the memory location X.
1
×
Assume that the content of the memory location 5000 is 10, and the content of the register R3 is 3000.
The content of each of the memory locations from 3000 to 3010 is 50. The instruction sequence starts
from the memory location 1000. All the numbers are in decimal format. Assume that the memory is
byte addressable. After the execution of the program, the content of memory location 3010 is _
Answer: 50
More Discussion Explanation On YouTube Machine Instructions Help-Line

A five-stage pipeline has stage delays of 150, 120, 150, 160 and 140 nanoseconds. The registers that
are used between the pipeline stages have a delay of 5 nanoseconds each. The total time to execute
100 independent instructions on this pipeline, assuming there are no pipeline stalls, is ___
nanoseconds.
Answer: 17160
More Discussion Explanation On YouTube Pipelinig Help-Line

Assume a two-level inclusive cache hierarchy, L1 and L2, where L2 is the larger of the two. Consider
the following statements.
S1: Read misses in a write through L1 cache do not result in writebacks of dirty lines to the L2.
S2: Write allocate policy must be used in conjunction with write through caches and no-write allocate
policy is used with write back caches.
i ➥ S1 is false and S2 is true
ii ➥ S1 is true and S2 is false
iii ➥ S1 is false and S2 is false
iv ➥ S1 is true and S2 is true
Answer: II
More Discussion Explanation On YouTube Cache Hierarchy Help-Line

Consider a computer system with DMA support, The DMA module is transferring one 8-bit character
in one CPU cycle from a device to memory through cycle stealing at regular intervals. Consider a 2
MHz processor. If 0.5% processor cycles are used for DMA, the data transfer rate of the device is
________ bits per second.
Answer: 80,000
More Discussion Explanation On YouTube DMA Help-Line

Consider a set-associative cache of size 2KB (1KB = 210bytes) with cache block size of 64 bytes.
Assume that the cache is byte-addressable and a 32-bit address is used for accessing the cache. If the
width of the tag field is 22 bits, the associativity of the cache is __
Answer: 2
More Discussion Explanation On YouTube Mapping Help-Line

Consider a pipelined processor with 5 stages, Instruction Fetch (IF), Instruction Decode (ID), Execute
(EX), Memory Access (MEM), and Write Back (WB). Each stage of the pipeline, except the EX stage,
takes one cycle. Assume that the ID stage merely decodes the instruction and the register read is
performed in the EX stage. The EX stage takes one cycle for ADD instruction and two cycles for MUL
instruction.
Consider the following sequence of 8 instructions:

ADD, MUL, ADD, MUL, ADD, MUL, ADD, MUL
Assume that every MUL instruction is data-dependent on the ADD instruction just before it and every
ADD instruction (except the first ADD) is data- dependent on the MUL instruction just before it. The
Speedup is defined as follows:
Answer: 1.87 to 1.88

More Discussion Explanation On YouTube Pipeline Help-Line
Q8 | GATE 2020
Consider the following data path diagram:
Consider an instruction: R0 ← R1 + R2. The following steps are used to execute it over the given data
path. Assume that PC is incremented appropriately. The subscripts r and w indicate read and write
operations, respectively.
1. R2r, TEMP1r, ALUadd, TEMP2w
2. R1r, TEMP1w
3. PCr, MARw, MEMr
4. TEMP2r, ROw
5. MDRr, IRw
Which one of the following is the correct order of execution of the above steps?
i ➥ 2, 1, 4, 5, 3
ii ➥ 1, 2, 4, 3, 5
iii ➥ 3, 5, 1, 2, 4
iv ➥ 3, 5, 2, 1, 4
Answer: IV
More Discussion Explanation On YouTube Registers Help-Line
Q9 | GATE 2020
Consider the following statements.
I. Daisy chaining is used to assign priorities in attending interrupts.
II. When a device raises a vectored interrupt, the CPU does polling to identify the source of the
interrupt.
III. In polling, the CPU periodically checks the status bits to know if any device needs its attention.
IV. During DMA, both the CPU and DMA controller can be bus masters at the same time.
Which of the above statements is/are TRUE?
i ➥ I and III only
ii ➥ I and IV only
iii ➥ I and II only
iv ➥ III only
Answer: I
More Discussion Explanation On YouTube Interrupt Help-Line
Q10 | GATE 2020

A computer system with a word length of 32 bits has a 16 MB byte-addressable main memory and a
64 KB, 4-way set associative cache memory with a block size of 256 bytes. Consider the following four
physical addresses represented in hexadecimal notation.
A1 = 0x42C8A4,
A2 = 0x546888,
A3 = 0x6A289C,
A4 = 0x5E4880
Which one of the following is TRUE?
i ➥ A3 and A4 are mapped to the same cache set.
ii ➥ A1 and A4 are mapped to different cache sets.
iii ➥ A2 and A3 are mapped to the same cache set.
iv ➥ A1 and A3 are mapped to the same cache set.
Answer: III
Q11 | GATE 2020

A processor has 64 registers and uses 16-bit instruction format. It has two types of instructions: I-type
and R-type. Each I-type instruction contains an opcode, a register name, and a 4-bit immediate value.
Each R-type instruction contains an opcode and two register names. If there are 8 distinct I-type
opcodes, then the maximum number of distinct R-type opcodes is ___________.
Answer: 14
More Discussion Explanation On YouTube Registers Help-Line

Q12 | GATE 2020
Consider a non-pipelined processor operating at 2.5 GHz. It takes 5 clock cycles to complete an
instruction. You are going to make a 5-stage pipeline out of this processor. Overheads associated with
pipelining force you to operate the pipelined processor at 2 GHz. In a given program, assume that
30% are memory instructions, 60% are ALU instructions and the rest are branch instructions. 5% of the
memory instructions cause stalls of 50 clock cycles each due to cache misses and 50% of the branch
instructions cause stalls of 2 cycles each. Assume that there are no stalls associated with the execution
of ALU instructions. For this program, the speedup achieved by the pipelined processor over the non-
pipelined processor (round off to 2 decimal places) is ________.
Answer: 2.15 to 2.18

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Q13 | GATE 2019

The chip select logic for a certain DRAM chip in a memory system design is shown below. Assume that
the memory system has 16 address lines denoted by A15 to A0. What is the range of addresses (in
hexadecimal) of the memory system that can get enabled by the chip select (CS) signal?
i ➥ C800 to CFFF
ii ➥ DA00 to DFFF
iii ➥ CA00 to CAFF
iv ➥ C800 to C8FF
Answer: I
More Discussion Explanation On YouTube DRAM Help-Line
Q14 | GATE 2019

A certain processor uses a fully associative cache of size 16 kB. The cache block size is 16 bytes.
Assume that the main memory is byte addressable and uses a 32-bit address. How many bits are
required for the Tag and the Index fields respectively in the addresses generated by the processor?
i ➥ 28 bits and 4 bits
ii ➥ 28 bits and 0 bits
iii ➥ 24 bits and 4 bits
iv ➥ 24 bits and 0 bits
Answer: II
Q15 | GATE 2019

A certain processor deploys a single-level cache. The cache block size is 8 words and the word size is 4
bytes. The memory system uses a 60-MHz clock. To service a cache miss, the memory controller first
takes 1 cycle to accept the starting address of the block, it then takes 3 cycles to fetch all the eight
words of the block, and finally transmits the words of the requested block at the rate of 1 word per
cycle. The maximum bandwidth for the memory system when the program running on the processor
issues a series of read operations is _________ × 106 bytes/sec.
Answer: 160
Q16 | GATE 2018

Consider the following processor design characteristics.
I. Register-to-register arithmetic operations only
II. Fixed-length instruction format
III. Hardwired control unit
Which of the characteristics above are used in the design of a RISC processor?
i ➥ I and III only
ii ➥ I, II and III
iii ➥ I and II only
iv ➥ II and III only
Answer: II
More Discussion Explanation On YouTube RISC Help-Line
Q17 | GATE 2018

The following are some events that occur after a device controller issues an interrupt while process L is
under execution.
(P) The processor pushes the process status of L onto the control stack.
(Q)The processor finishes the execution of the current instruction.
(R) The processor executes the interrupt service routine.
(S) The processor pops the process status of L from the control stack.
(T) The processor loads the new PC value based on the interrupt.
Which one of the following is the correct order in which the events above occur?
i ➥ QTPRS
ii ➥ TRPQS
iii ➥ PTRSQ
iv ➥ QPTRS
Answer: IV
More Discussion Explanation On YouTube interrupt Help-Line
Q18 | GATE 2018

Consider a process executing on an operating system that uses demand paging. The average time for
a memory access in the system is M units if the corresponding memory page is available in memory,
and D units if the memory access causes a page fault. It has been
experimentally measured that the average time taken for a memory access in the process is X units.
Which one of the following is the correct expression for the page fault rate experienced by the
process?
i ➥ (D – M) / (X – M)
ii ➥ (X – M) / (D – M)
iii ➥ (D – X) / (D – M)
iv ➥ (X – M) / (D – X)
Answer: II
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Q19 | GATE 2018

A 32-bit wide main memory unit with a capacity of 1 GB is built using 256M × 4-bit DRAM chips. The
number of rows of memory cells in the DRAM chip is 214. The time taken to perform one refresh
operation is 50 nanoseconds. The refresh period is 2 milliseconds. The percentage (rounded to the
closest integer) of the time available for performing the memory read/write operations in the main
memory unit is _.
Answer: 59 To 60
More Discussion Explanation On YouTube Memory Interfacing Help-Line

Q20 | GATE 2018
The size of the physical address space of a processor is 2P bytes. The word length is 2W bytes. The
capacity of cache memory is 2N bytes. The size of each cache block is 2M words. For a K-way set-
associative cache memory, the length (in number of bits) of the tag field is
i ➥ P – N – log2K
ii ➥ P – N + log2K
iii ➥ P – N – M – W – log2K
iv ➥ P – N – M – W + log2K
Answer: II
Q21 | GATE 2018

The instruction pipeline of a RISC processor has the following stages: Instruction Fetch (IF), Instruction
Decode (ID), Operand Fetch (OF), Perform Operation (PO) and Writeback (WB). The IF, ID, OF and WB
stages take 1 clock cycle each for every instruction. Consider a sequence of 100 instructions. In the PO
stage, 40 instructions take 3 clock cycles each, 35 instructions take 2 clock cycles each, and the
remaining 25 instructions take 1 clock cycle each. Assume that there are no data hazards and no
control hazards.
The number of clock cycles required for completion of execution of the sequence of instructions
is_____.
Answer: 219
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Q22 | GATE 2018

A processor has 16 integer registers (R0, R1, …, R15) and 64 floating point registers (F0, F1, …, F63). It
uses a 2-byte instruction format. There are four categories of instructions: Type-1, Type-2, Type-3 and
Type-4. Type-1 category consists of four instructions, each with 3 integer register operands (3Rs).
Type-2 category consists of eight instructions, each with 2 floating point register operands (2Fs). Type-
3 category consists of fourteen instructions, each with one integer register operand and one floating
point register operand (1R+1F). Type-4 category consists of N instructions, each with a floating point
register operand (1F).
The maximum value of N is _________.
Answer: 32
More Discussion Explanation On YouTube Machine-Instructions Help-Line
Q23 | GATE 2017 Set-1

Consider the C struct defined below:
The base address of student is available in register R1. The field student.grade can be accessed
efficiently using
i ➥ Index addressing mode, X(R1), where X is an offset represented in 2’s complement 16-bit
representation
ii ➥ Register direct addressing mode, R1
iii ➥ Post-increment addressing mode, (R1)+
iv ➥ Pre-decrement addressing mode, -(R1)
Answer: I
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Q24 | GATE 2017 Set-1
Consider a two-level cache hierarchy with L1 and L2 caches. An application incurs 1.4 memory
accesses per instruction on average. For this application, the miss rate of L1 cache is 0.1; the L2 cache
experiences, on average, 7 misses per 1000 instructions. The miss rate of L2 expressed correct to two
decimal places is _______.
Answer: 0.05
Q25 | GATE 2017 Set-1

A cache memory unit with capacity of N words and block size of B words is to be designed. If it is
designed as a direct mapped cache, the length of the TAG field is 10 bits. If the cache unit is now
designed as a 16-way set-associative cache, the length of the TAG field is ________ bits.
Answer: 14
More Discussion Explanation On YouTube Cache Memory Help-Line
Q26 | GATE 2017 Set-1

Consider a 2-way set associative cache with 256 blocks and uses LRU replacement. Initially the cache is
empty. Conflict misses are those misses which occur due to contention of multiple blocks for the same
cache set. Compulsory misses occur due to first time access to the block. The following sequence of
accesses to memory blocks
(0, 128, 256, 128, 0, 128, 256, 128, 1, 129, 257, 129, 1, 129, 257, 129)
is repeated 10 times. The number of conflict misses experienced by the cache is _________.
Answer: 76

Q27 | GATE 2017 Set-1
Instruction execution in a processor is divided into 5 stages, Instruction Fetch (IF), Instruction Decode
(ID), Operand Fetch (OF), Execute (EX),
and Write Back (WB). These stages take 5, 4, 20, 10 and 3 nanoseconds (ns) respectively. A pipelined
implementation of the processor requires buffering between each pair of consecutive stages with a
delay of 2 ns.
Two pipelined implementations of the processor are contemplated:

(i) a naive pipeline implementation (NP) with 5 stages and
(ii) an efficient pipeline (EP) where the OF stage is divided into stages OF1 and OF2 with execution
times of 12 ns and 8 ns respectively.
The speedup (correct to two decimal places) achieved by EP over NP in executing 20 independent
instructions with no hazards is _______.
Answer: 1.52
More Discussion Explanation On YouTube Pipelining Help-Line
Q28 | GATE 2017 Set-1

Consider a RISC machine where each instruction is exactly 4 bytes long. Conditional and unconditional
branch instructions use PC-relative addressing mode with Offset specified in bytes to the target
location of the branch instruction. Further the Offset is always with respect to the address of the next
instruction in the program sequence. Consider the following instruction sequence
If the target of the branch instruction is i, then the decimal value of the Offset is ________.
Answer: -16
More Discussion Explanation On YouTube Instruction Cycle Help-Line

Q29 | GATE 2017 Set-2
In a two-level cache system, the access times of L1 and L2 caches are 1 and 8 clock cycles, respectively.
The miss penalty from the L2 cache to main memory is 18 clock cycles. The miss rate of L1 cache is
twice that of L2. The average memory access time (AMAT) of this cache system is 2 cycles. The miss
rates of L1 and L2 respectively are:
i ➥ 0.111 and 0.056
ii ➥ 0.056 and 0.111
iii ➥ 0.0892 and 0.1784
iv ➥ 0.1784 and 0.0892
Answer: I
Q30 | GATE 2017 Set-2

The read access times and the hit ratios for different caches in a memory hierarchy are as given below:
The read access time of main memory is 90 nanoseconds. Assume that the caches use the referred-
word-first read policy and the write back policy. Assume that all the caches are direct mapped caches.
Assume that the dirty bit is always 0 for all the blocks in the caches. In execution of a program, 60% of
memory reads are for instruction fetch and 40% are for memory operand fetch. The average read
access time in nanoseconds (up to 2 decimal places) is _________.
Answer: 4.72

Q31 | GATE 2017 Set-2
Consider a machine with a byte addressable main memory of 232 bytes divided into blocks of size 32
bytes. Assume that a direct mapped cache having 512 cache lines is used with this machine. The size
of the tag field in bits is _______.
Answer: 18
Q32 | GATE 2016 Set-1

A processor can support a maximum memory of 4GB, where the memory is word-addressable (a word
consists of two bytes). The size of the address bus of the processor is at least ________ bits.
Answer: 31
More Discussion Explanation On YouTube Memory Interfacing Help-Line
Q33 | GATE 2016 Set-1

The size of the data count register of a DMA controller is 16 bits. The processor needs to transfer a file
of 29,154 kilobytes from disk to main memory. The memory is byte addressable. The minimum
number of times the DMA controller needs to get the control of the system bus from the processor to
transfer the file from the disk to main memory is ___________.
Answer: 456
Q34 | GATE 2016 Set-1

The stage delays in a 4-stage pipeline are 800, 500, 400 and 300 picoseconds. The first stage (with
delay 800 picoseconds) is replaced with a functionally equivalent design involving two stages with
respective delays 600 and 350 picoseconds. The throughput increase of the pipeline
is __________percent.
Answer: 33 to 34
Q35 | GATE 2016 Set-2

A processor has 40 distinct instructions and 24 general purpose registers. A 32-bit instruction word
has an opcode, two register operands and an immediate operand. The number of bits available for the
immediate operand field is _________.
Answer: 16
Q36 | GATE 2016 Set-2

Suppose the functions F and G can be computed in 5 and 3 nanoseconds by functional units UF and
UG, respectively. Given two instances of UF and two instances of UG, it is required to implement the
computation F(G(Xi)) for 1 ≤ i ≤ 10. Ignoring all other delays, the minimum time required to complete
this computation is _ nanoseconds.
Answer: 28
More Discussion Explanation On YouTube CPU Organization Help-Line
Q37 | GATE 2016 Set-2

Consider a processor with 64 registers and an instruction set of size twelve. Each instruction has five
distinct fields, namely, opcode, two source register identifiers, one destination register r identifier, and
a twelve-bit immediate value. Each instruction must be stored in memory in a byte-aligned fashion. If
a program has 100 instructions, the amount of memory (in bytes) consumed by the program text is
_________.
Answer: 500
More Discussion Explanation On YouTube Machine Instruction Help-Line
Q38 | GATE 2016 Set-2

The width of the physical address on a machine is 40 bits. The width of the tag field in a 512 KB 8-way
set associative cache is ________ bits.
Answer: 24
Q39 | GATE 2016 Set-2

Consider a 3 GHz (gigahertz) processor with a three-stage pipeline and stage latencies τ1, τ2, τ3 and
such that τ1 = 3τ2/4 = 2τ3. If the longest pipeline stage is split into two pipeline stages of equal
latency, the new frequency is ____________ GHz, ignoring delays in the pipeline registers
Answer: 4
Q40 | GATE 2015 Set-1

For computers based on three-address instruction formats, each address field can be used to specify
which of the following:
(S1) A memory operand
(S2) A processor register
(S3) An implied accumulator register
i ➥ Either S1 or S2
ii ➥ Either S2 or S3
iii ➥ Only S2 and S3
iv ➥ All of S1, S2 and S3
Answer: I
Q41 | GATE 2015 Set-1

Consider a disk pack with a seek time of 4 milliseconds and rotational speed of 10000 rotations per
minute (RPM). It has 600 sectors per track and each sector can store 512 bytes of data. Consider a file
stored in the disk. The file contains 2000 sectors. Assume that every sector access necessitates a seek,
and the average rotational latency for accessing each sector is half of the time for one complete
rotation. The total time (in milliseconds) needed to read the entire file is _________.
Answer: 14020
More Discussion Explanation On YouTube Secondary Storage Help-Line
Q42 | GATE 2015 Set-1

Consider a non-pipelined processor with a clock rate of 2.5 gigahertz and average cycles per
instruction of four. The same processor is upgraded to a pipelined processor with five stages; but due
to the internal pipeline delay, the clock speed is reduced to 2 gigahertz. Assume that there are no
stalls in the pipeline. The speed up achieved in this pipelined processor is _______.
Answer: 3.2
More Discussion Explanation On YouTube Pipelinig Help-Line

Q43 | GATE 2015 Set-2
Assume that for a certain processor, a read request takes 50 nanoseconds on a cache miss and 5
nanoseconds on a cache hit. Suppose while running a program, it was observed that 80% of the
processors read requests result in a cache hit. The average and access time in nanoseconds is ________.
Answer: 14
Q44 | GATE 2015 Set-2

Consider a typical disk that rotates at 15000 rotations per minute (RPM) and has a transfer rate of
50×106 bytes/sec. If the average seek time of the disk is twice the average rotational delay and the
controller’s transfer time is 10 times the disk transfer time, the average time (in milliseconds) to read
or write a 512-byte sector of the disk is ________.
Answer: 6.1 to 6.2

More Discussion Explanation On YouTube Secondary Memory Help-Line
Q45 | GATE 2015 Set-2

Consider the sequence of machine instructions given below:
MUL R5, R0, R1
DIV R6, R2, R3
ADD R7, R5, R6
SUB R8, R7, R4
In the above sequence, R0 to R8 are general purpose registers. In the instructions shown, the first
register stores the result of the operation performed on the second and the third registers. This
sequence of instructions is to be executed in a pipelined instruction processor with the following 4
stages:
(1) Instruction Fetch and Decode (IF),
(2) Operand Fetch (OF),
(3) Perform Operation (PO) and
(4) Write back the Result (WB).
The IF, OF and WB stages take 1 clock cycle each for any instruction. The PO stage takes 1 clock cycle
for ADD or SUB instruction, 3 clock cycles for MUL instruction and 5 clock cycles for DIV instruction.
The pipelined processor uses operand forwarding from the PO stage to the OF stage. The number of
clock cycles taken for the execution of the above sequence of instructions is
Answer: 13
Q46 | GATE 2015 Set-2

Consider a processor with byte-addressable memory. Assume that all registers, including Program
Counter (PC) and Program Status Word (PSW), are of size 2 bytes. A stack in the main memory is
implemented from memory location (0100)16 and it grows upward. The stack pointer (SP) points to
the top element of the stack. The current value of SP is (016E)16. The CALL instruction is of two words,
the first word is the op-code and the second word is the starting address of the subroutine (one word
= 2 bytes). The CALL instruction is implemented as follows:
• Store the current value of PC in the stack.
• Store the value of PSW register in the stack.
• Load the starting address of the subroutine in PC.
The content of PC just before the fetch of a CALL instruction is (5FA0)16. After execution of the CALL
instruction, the value of the stack pointer is
i ➥ (016A)16
ii ➥ (016C)16
iii ➥ (0170)16
iv ➥ (0172)16
Answer: IV
More Discussion Explanation On YouTube Machine Instruction Help-Line

Q48 | GATE 2015 Set-2
A computer system implements a 40-bit virtual address, page size of 8 kilobytes, and a 128-entry
translation look-aside buffer (TLB organized into 32 sets each having four ways. Assume that the TLB
tag does not store any process id. The minimum length of the TLB tag in bits is _________.
Answer: 22
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Q47 | GATE 2015 Set-3

Consider a machine with a byte addressable main memory of 220 bytes, block size of 16 bytes and a
direct mapped cache having 212 cache lines. Let the addresses of two consecutive bytes in main
memory be (E201F)16 and (E2020)16. What are the tag and cache line address (in hex) for main
memory address (E201F)16?
i ➥ E, 201
ii ➥ F, 201
iii ➥ E, E20
iv ➥ 2, 01F
Answer: I
Q48 | GATE 2015 Set-3

Consider the following code sequence having five instructions I1 to I5. Each of these instructions has
the following format.
OP Ri, Rj, Rk
where operation OP is performed on contents of registers Rj and Rk and the result is stored in register
Ri.
I1 : ADD R1, R2, R3
I2 : MUL R7, R1, R3
I3 : SUB R4, R1, R5

I4 : ADD R3, R2, R4
I5 : MUL R7, R8, R9
Consider the following three statements:

S1: There is an anti-dependence between instructions I2 and I5.
S2: There is an anti-dependence between instructions I2 and I4.
S3: Within an instruction pipeline an anti-dependence always creates one or more stalls.
Which one of above statements is/are correct?
i ➥ Only S1 is true
ii ➥ Only S2 is true
iii ➥ Only S1 and S3 are true
iv ➥ Only S2 and S3 are true
Answer: I
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Q49 | GATE 2015 Set-3

Consider the following reservation table for a pipeline having three stages S1, S2 and S3.
The minimum average latency (MAL) is _______.
Answer: 3
Q50 | GATE 2014 Set-1

A machine has a 32-bit architecture, with 1-word long instructions. It has 64 registers, each of which is
32 bits long. It needs to support 45 instructions, which have an immediate operand in addition to two
register operands. Assuming that the immediate operand is an unsigned integer, the maximum value
of the immediate operand is .
Answer: 16383
More Discussion Explanation On YouTube Machine-Instructions Help-Line
Q51 | GATE 2014 Set-1

Consider a 6-stage instruction pipeline, where all stages are perfectly balanced.Assume that there is no
cycle-time overhead of pipelining. When an application is executing on this 6-stage pipeline, the
speedup achieved with respect to non-pipelined execution if 25% of the instructions incur 2 pipeline
stall cycles is .
Answer: 4
Q52 | GATE 2014 Set-1

An access sequence of cache block addresses is of length N and contains n unique block addresses.
The number of unique block addresses between two consecutive accesses to the same block address
is bounded above by k. What is the miss ratio if the access sequence is passed through a cache of
associativity A ≥ k exercising least-recently-used replacement policy?
i ➥ n/N
ii ➥ 1/N
iii ➥ 1/A
iv ➥ k/n
Answer: I
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Q53 | GATE 2014 Set-1

Consider two processors P1 and P2 executing the same instruction set. Assume that under identical
conditions, for the same input, a program running on P2 takes 25% less time but incurs 20% more CPI
(clock cycles per instruction) as compared to the program running on P1. If the clock frequency of P1 is
1GHz, then the clock frequency of P2 (in GHz) is .
Answer: 1.6
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Q54 | GATE 2014 Set-2

A 4-way set-associative cache memory unit with a capacity of 16 KB is built using a block size of 8
words. The word length is 32 bits. The size of the physical address space is 4 GB. The number of bits
for the TAG field is
Answer: 20
More Discussion Explanation On YouTube cache memory Help-Line
Q55 | GATE 2014 Set-2

In designing a computer’s cache system, the cache block (or cache line) size is an important
parameter. Which one of the following statements is correct in this context?
i ➥ A smaller block size implies better spatial locality
ii ➥ A smaller block size implies a smaller cache tag and hence lower cache tag overhead
iii ➥ A smaller block size implies a larger cache tag and hence lower cache hit time
iv ➥ A smaller block size incurs a lower cache miss penalty

Answer: IV
Q56 | GATE 2014 Set-2

If the associativity of a processor cache is doubled while keeping the capacity and block size
unchanged, which one of the following is guaranteed to be NOT affected?
i ➥ Width of tag comparator
ii ➥ Width of set index decoder
iii ➥ Width of way selection multiplexor
iv ➥ Width of processor to main memory data bus
Answer: IV
Q57 | GATE 2014 Set-2

Consider a main memory system that consists of 8 memory modules attached to the system bus,
which is one word wide. When a write request is made, the bus is occupied for 100 nanoseconds (ns)
by the data, address, and control signals. During the same 100 ns, and for 500 ns thereafter, the
addressed memory module executes one cycle accepting and storing the data. The (internal)
operation of different memory modules may overlap in time, but only one request can be on the bus
at any time. The maximum number of stores (of one word each) that can be initiated in 1 millisecond
is
Answer: 10000
More Discussion Explanation On YouTube Main Memory Help-Line

Q58 | GATE 2014 Set-3
Consider the following processors (ns stands for nanoseconds). Assume that the pipeline registers
have zero latency.
P1: Four-stage pipeline with stage latencies 1 ns, 2 ns, 2 ns, 1 ns.
P2: Four-stage pipeline with stage latencies 1 ns, 1.5 ns, 1.5 ns, 1.5 ns.
P3: Five-stage pipeline with stage latencies 0.5 ns, 1 ns, 1 ns, 0.6 ns, 1 ns.
P4: Five-stage pipeline with stage latencies 0.5 ns, 0.5 ns, 1 ns, 1 ns, 1.1 ns.
Which processor has the highest peak clock frequency?
i ➥ p1
ii ➥ p2
iii ➥ p3
iv ➥ p4
Answer: III
Q59 | GATE 2014 Set-3

An instruction pipeline has five stages, namely, instruction fetch (IF), instruction decode and register
fetch (ID/RF), instruction execution (EX), memory access (MEM), and register writeback (WB) with stage
latencies 1 ns, 2.2 ns, 2 ns, 1 ns, and 0.75 ns, respectively (ns stands for nanoseconds). To gain in terms
of frequency, the designers have decided to split the ID/RF stage into three stages (ID, RF1, RF2) each
of latency 2.2/3 ns. Also, the EX stage is split into two stages (EX1, EX2) each of latency 1 ns. The new
design has a total of eight pipeline stages. A program has 20% branch instructions which execute in
the EX stage and produce the next instruction pointer at the end of the EX stage in the old design and
at the end of the EX2 stage in the new design. The IF stage stalls after fetching a branch instruction
until the next instruction pointer is computed. All instructions other than the branch instruction have
an average CPI of one in both the designs. The execution times of this program on the old and the
new design are P and Q nanoseconds, respectively. The value of P/Q is__________________.
Answer: 1.50 To 1.60

Q60 | GATE 2014 Set-3

The memory access time is 1 nanosecond for a read operation with a hit in cache, 5 nanoseconds for a
read operation with a miss in cache, 2 nanoseconds for a write operation with a hit in cache and 10
nanoseconds for a write operation with a miss in cache. Execution of a sequence of instructions
involves 100 instruction fetch operations, 60 memory operand read operations and 40 memory
operand write operations. The cache hit-ratio is 0.9. The average memory access time (in
nanoseconds) in executing the sequence of instructions is .
Answer: 1.68
More Discussion Explanation On YouTube cache Help-Line
Q61 | GATE 2013

In a k-way set associative cache, the cache is divided into v sets, each of which consists of k lines. The
lines of a set are placed in sequence one after another. The lines in set s are sequenced before the
lines in set (s+1). The main memory blocks are numbered 0 onwards. The main memory block
numbered j must be mapped to any one of the cache lines from
i ➥ (j mod v) * k to (j mod v) * k + (k-1)
ii ➥ (j mod v) to (j mod v) + (k-1)
iii ➥ (j mod k) to (j mod k) + (v-1)
iv ➥ (j mod k) * v to (j mod k) * v + (v-1)
Answer: I

Q62 | GATE 2013
Consider the following sequence of micro-operations.
MBR ← PC
MAR ← X
PC ← Y
Memory ← MBR
Which one of the following is a possible operation performed by this sequence?
i ➥ Instruction fetch
ii ➥ Operand fetch
iii ➥ Conditional branch
iv ➥ Initiation of interrupt service
Answer: IV
More Discussion Explanation On YouTube Mirco Operation Help-Line
Q63 | GATE 2013

Consider a hard disk with 16 recording surfaces (0-15) having 16384 cylinders (0-16383) and each
cylinder contains 64 sectors (0-63). Data storage capacity in each sector is 512 bytes. Data are
organized cylinder-wise and the addressing format is . A file of size 42797 KB is stored in the disk and
the starting disk location of the file is <1200, 9, 40>. What is the cylinder number of the last sector of
the file, if it is stored in a contiguous manner?
i ➥ 1281
ii ➥ 1282
iii ➥ 1283
iv ➥ 1284
Answer: IV
More Discussion Explanation On YouTube Secondary Memory Help-Line
Q64 | GATE 2013

Consider an instruction pipeline with five stages without any branch prediction: Fetch Instruction (FI),
Decode Instruction (DI), Fetch Operand (FO), Execute Instruction (EI) and Write Operand (WO). The
stage delays for FI, DI, FO, EI and WO are 5 ns, 7 ns, 10 ns, 8 ns and 6 ns, respectively. There
are intermediate storage buffers after each stage and the delay of each buffer is 1 ns. A program
consisting of 12 instructions I1, I2, I3, I4 …, I12 is executed in this pipelined processor. Instruction I4 is
the only branch instruction and its branch target is I9. If the branch is taken during the execution of
this program, the time (in ns) needed to complete the program is
i ➥ 132
ii ➥ 165
iii ➥ 176
iv ➥ 328
Answer: II
Q65 | GATE 2013

A RAM chip has a capacity of 1024 words of 8 bits each (1K×8). The number of 2×4 decoders with
enable line needed to construct a 16K×16 RAM from 1K×8 RAM is
i➥4
ii ➥ 5
iii ➥ 6
iv ➥ 7
Answer: II
Q66 | GATE 2013

Common Data for Questions 66 and 67 :
The following code segment is executed on a processor which allows only register operands in its
instructions. Each instruction can have atmost two source operands and one destination operand.
Assume that all variables are dead after this code segment.
Suppose the instruction set architecture of the processor has only two registers. The only allowed
compiler optimization is code motion, which moves statements from one place to another while
preserving correctness. What is the minimum number of spills to memory in the compiled code?
i➥0
ii ➥ 1
iii ➥ 2
iv ➥ 3
Answer: II
More Discussion Explanation On YouTube Code Segment Help-Line
Q67 | GATE 2013

Common Data for Questions 66 and 67 :
The following code segment is executed on a processor which allows only register operands in its
instructions. Each instruction can have atmost two source operands and one destination operand.
Assume that all variables are dead after this code segment.
What is the minimum number of registers needed in the instruction set architecture of the processor
to compile this code segment without any spill to memory? Do not apply any optimization other than
optimizing register allocation.
i➥3
ii ➥ 4
iii ➥ 5
iv ➥ 6
Answer: II
More Discussion Explanation On YouTube Code Segment Help-Line
Q68 | GATE 2012

Register renaming is done in pipelined processors
i ➥ as an alternative to register allocation at compile time
ii ➥ for efficient access to function parameters and local variables
iii ➥ to handle certain kinds of hazards
iv ➥ as part of address translation
Answer: III
Q69 | GATE 2012

Statement for Linked Answer Questions 69 and 70:
A computer has a 256 KByte, 4-way set associative, write back data cache with block size of 32 Bytes.
The processor sends 32 bit addresses to the cache controller. Each cache tag directory entry contains,
in addition to address tag, 2 valid bits, 1 modified bit and 1 replacement bit.
The number of bits in the tag field of an address is
i ➥ 11
ii ➥ 14
iii ➥ 16
iv ➥ 27
Answer: III
More Discussion Explanation On YouTube Cache Mapping Help-Line
Q70 | GATE 2012

Statement for Linked Answer Questions 69 and 70:
A computer has a 256 KByte, 4-way set associative, write back data cache with block size of 32 Bytes.
The processor sends 32 bit addresses to the cache controller. Each cache tag directory entry contains,
in addition to address tag, 2 valid bits, 1 modified bit and 1 replacement bit.
The size of the cache tag directory is
i ➥ 160 Kbits
ii ➥ 136 Kbits
iii ➥ 40 Kbits
iv ➥ 32 Kbits
Answer: I
More Discussion Explanation On YouTube Cache Mapping Help-Line
Q71 | GATE 2011

A computer handles several interrupt sources of which the following are relevant for this question.
. Interrupt from CPU temperature sensor (raises interrupt if CPU temperature is too high)
. Interrupt from Mouse(raises interrupt if the mouse is moved or a button is pressed)
. Interrupt from Keyboard(raises interrupt when a key is pressed or released)
. Interrupt from Hard Disk(raises interrupt when a disk read is completed)
Which one of these will be handled at the HIGHEST priority?
i ➥ Interrupt from Hard Dist
ii ➥ Interrupt from Mouse
iii ➥ Interrupt from Keyboard
iv ➥ Interrupt from CPU temperature sensor
Answer: IV
More Discussion Explanation On YouTube Interrupt Help-Line
Q72 | GATE 2011

Consider a hypothetical processor with an instruction of type LW R1, 20 (R2), which during execution
reads a 32-bit word from memory and stores it in a 32-bit register R1. The effective address of the
memory location is obtained by the addition of constant 20 and the contents of register R2. Which of
the following best reflects the addressing mode implemented by this instruction for the operand
memory?
i ➥ Immediate Addressing
ii ➥ Register Addressing
iii ➥ Register Indirect Scaled Addressing
iv ➥ Base Indexed Addressing
Answer: IV
Q73 | GATE 2011

On a non-pipelined sequential processor, a program segment, which is a part of the interrupt service
routine, is given to transfer 500 bytes from an I/O device to memory.
Initialize the address register
Initialize the count to 500
LOOP: Load a byte from device
Store in memory at address given by address register
Increment the address register
Decrement the count

If count != 0 go to LOOP
Assume that each statement in this program is equivalent to machine instruction which takes one
clock cycle to execute if it is a non-load/store instruction. The load-store instructions take two clock
cycles to execute.
The designer of the system also has an alternate approach of using DMA controller to implement the
same transfer. The DMA controller requires 20 clock cycles for initialization and other overheads. Each
DMA transfer cycle takes two clock cycles to transfer one byte of data from the device to the memory.
What is the approximate speedup when the DMA controller based design is used in place of the
interrupt driven program based input-output?
i ➥ 3.4
ii ➥ 4.4
iii ➥ 5.1
iv ➥ 6.7
Answer: I
Q74 | GATE 2011

Consider an instruction pipeline with four stages (S1, S2, S3 and S4) each with combinational circuit
only. The pipeline registers are required between each stage and at the end of the last stage. Delays
for the stages and for the pipeline registers are as given in the figure:
What is the approximate speed up of the pipeline in steady state under ideal conditions when
compared to the corresponding non-pipeline implementation?
i ➥ 4.0
ii ➥ 2.5
iii ➥ 1.1
iv ➥ 3.0
Answer: II
More Discussion Explanation On YouTube Instruction Pipelining Help-Line
Q75 | GATE 2011

An 8KB direct-mapped write-back cache is organized as multiple blocks, each of size 32-bytes. The
processor generates 32-bit addresses. The cache controller maintains the tag information for each
cache block comprising of the following.
1 Valid bit
1 Modified bit
As many bits as the minimum needed to identify the memory block mapped in the cache.
What is the total size of memory needed at the cache controller to store meta-data (tags) for the
cache?
i ➥ 4864 bits
ii ➥ 6144 bits
iii ➥ 6656 bits
iv ➥ 5376 bits
Answer: IV
Q76 | GATE 2011

An application loads 100 libraries at startup. Loading each library requires exactly one disk access. The
seek time of the disk to a random location is given as 10 ms. Rotational speed of disk is 6000 rpm. If
all 100 libraries are loaded from random locations on the disk, how long does it take to load all
libraries? (The time to transfer data from the disk block once the head has been positioned at the start
of the block may be neglected).
i ➥ 0.50 s
ii ➥ 1.50 s
iii ➥ 1.25 s
iv ➥ 1.00 s
Answer: II
More Discussion Explanation On YouTube Secondary Storage Help-Line
Q77 | GATE 2010

A 5-stage pipelined processor has Instruction Fetch(IF),Instruction Decode(ID),Operand
Fetch(OF),Perform Operation(PO)and Write Operand(WO)stages.The IF,ID,OF and WO stages take 1
clock cycle each for any instruction.The PO stage takes 1 clock cycle for ADD and SUB instructions,3
clock cycles for MUL instruction,and 6 clock cycles for DIV instruction respectively.Operand forwarding
is used in the pipeline.What is the number of clock cycles needed to execute the following sequence
of instructions?
i ➥ 13
ii ➥ 15
iii ➥ 17
iv ➥ 19
Answer: II
Q78 | GATE 2010

The program below uses six temporary variables a, b, c, d, e, f.
a=1
b = 10
c = 20
d = a+b
e = c+d
f = c+e
b = c+e
e = b+f
d = 5+e
return d+f
Assuming that all operations take their operands from registers, what is the minimum number of
registers needed to execute this program without spilling?
i➥2
ii ➥ 3
iii ➥ 4
iv ➥ 6
Answer:
More Discussion Explanation On YouTube Register Allocation Help-Line
Q79 | GATE 2010

A computer system has an L1 cache, aL2 cache, and a main memory unit connected as shown below.
The block size in L1 caches is 4 words. The size in L2 cache is 16 words. The memory access times are 2
nanoseconds. 20 nanoseconds and 200 nanoseconds for L1 cache, L2 cache and main memory unit
respectively.
When there is a miss in L1 caches and a hit in L2 cache, a block is transferred from L2 cache to L1
cache, what is the time taken for this transfer ?
i ➥ 2 nanoseconds
ii ➥ 20 nanoseconds
iii ➥ 22 nanoseconds
iv ➥ 88 nanoseconds
Answer: III
More Discussion Explanation On YouTube Memory Hierarchy Help-Line
Q80 | GATE 2010

A computer system has an L1 cache, aL2 cache, and a main memory unit connected as shown below.
The block size in L1 caches is 4 words. The size in L2 cache is 16 words. The memory access times are 2
nanoseconds. 20 nanoseconds and 200 nanoseconds for L1 cache, L2 cache and main memory unit
respectively.
When there is a miss in L1 cache and a hit in L2 cache, a block is transferred from L2 cache to L1
cache. What is the time taken for these transfer?
i ➥ 222 nanoseconds
ii ➥ 888 nanoseconds
iii ➥ 902 nanoseconds
iv ➥ 968 nanoseconds
Answer: III
More Discussion Explanation On YouTube Memory Hierarchy Help-Line

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GATE CSE Computer Organization PYQ

Q1 | GATE 2021 Set-1

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Q2 | GATE 2021 Set-1

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Q3 | GATE 2021 Set-1

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Q4 | GATE 2021 Set-2

ii ➥ S1 is true and S2 is false

iii ➥ S1 is false and S2 is false

iv ➥ S1 is true and S2 is true

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Q5 | GATE 2021 Set-2

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Q6 | GATE 2021 Set-2

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Consider the following sequence of 8 instructions:

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Answer: 1.87 to 1.88

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i ➥ I and III only

iii ➥ I and II only

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Q10 | GATE 2020

i ➥ A3 and A4 are mapped to the same cache set.

ii ➥ A1 and A4 are mapped to different cache sets.

iii ➥ A2 and A3 are mapped to the same cache set.

iv ➥ A1 and A3 are mapped to the same cache set.

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Q11 | GATE 2020

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Answer: 2.15 to 2.18

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Q13 | GATE 2019

iii ➥ CA00 to CAFF

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Q14 | GATE 2019

i ➥ 28 bits and 4 bits

ii ➥ 28 bits and 0 bits

iii ➥ 24 bits and 4 bits

iv ➥ 24 bits and 0 bits

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