Question

1. What is a difference between general purpose processor and single purpose processor? Also write the Advantages and disadvantages, and how they complement each other.

2. Give one ESD hypothetical application and discuss SOC system.

Answer 1

1)The "Single purpose processor" is most related to Application Specific Integreated Circuit (ASIC). There are other processors that also have only one purpose, such as microcontrollers (MCUs), Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA) or Complex Programmable Logic Device (CPLD). But since they are more or less serving the same one purpose in final product, only some different in their structure or operation, I would take ASIC for example.It is only designed to complete a single purpose. It can also be called as co-processor, accelerator or peripheral.

Single purpose processors are good at performance, low power consumption and so portable/requires small space on-board.

A general-purpose macro processor or general purpose preprocessor is a macroprocessor that is not tied to or integrated with a particular language or piece of software. A macro processor is a program that copies a stream of text from one place to another, making a systematic set of replacements as it does so.

It contains program memory,general data path with large register file and general ALU

Low time to cost and low NRE along with high flecibity are these well known benifits.

Pentium is well known general purpose processor

2)SOC-A system-on-a-chip (SoC) is a microchip with all the necessary electronic circuits and parts for a given system, such as a smartphone or wearable computer, on a single integrated circuit (IC).

An SoC for a sound-detecting device, for example, might include an audio receiver, an analog-to-digital converter (ADC), a microprocessor, memory, and the input/output logic control for a user - all on a single chip.

System-on-a-chip technology is used in small, increasingly complex consumer electronic devices. Some such devices have more processing power and memory than a typical 10-year-old desktop computer. In the future, SoC-equipped nanorobots (robots of microscopic dimensions) might act as programmable antibodies to fend off previously incurable diseases. SoC video devices might be embedded in the brains of blind people, allowing them to see and SoC audio devices might allow deaf people to hear. Handheld computers with small whip antennas might someday be capable of browsing the Internet at megabit-per-second speeds from any point on the surface of the earth.