Question

What are the three stages included in pipelining of 80386?

(a) Fetch, decode, execute

(b) Fetch, execute, decode

(c) Execute, fetch, decode

(d) Decode, execute, fetch

The question was posed to me during an internship interview.

My question comes from Features of Intel in chapter Embedded Processors of Embedded Systems

Answer 1

The correct option is (a) Fetch, decode, execute

To elaborate: The instruction can execute in a single cycle which is done by pipelining the instruction flow. The address calculations are performed as the instruction proceeds down the line. Pipelining may take several cycles, an instruction can potentially be started and completed on every clock edge, thus achieving the single cycle performance.