Question

The disadvantage of register windowing is

(a) high speed

(b) puts demands on multiplexers/register ports

(c) consumes less cycles

(d) doesn’t handle overflow/underflow

I have been asked this question during an interview.

I need to ask this question from Hybrid Architecture -RISC and CISC Convergence, Advantages of RISC, Design Issues of RISC Processors -2 in section RISC Architecture of Microprocessor

Answer 1

Correct choice is (d) doesn’t handle overflow/underflow

Best explanation: It is impossible to predict when the register file will overflow or underflow, so performance is unpredictable. It generates a software fault, which the operating system has to handle, consuming more cycles.