Question

Which of the most important characteristics of superscalar processor?

Answer 1

Characteristics of superscalar processors

Superscalar processors issue

– more than one instruction each cycle

– the number of instructions issued will depend on the instructions in the instruction

stream

– instructions are often re-ordered to fit the processor architecture better

– typically, between 1 and 8 instructions can be issued each cycle

• The simplest possibility is a machine which issues

– one integer instruction

– one floating-point instruction

• per clock cycle

• this only gives appreciable improvements if there are many FP

instructions to be executed.