Practice question · Multiple choice
Modern x86 processors translate their own instructions into simpler internal micro-operations before executing them. Why build a chip that does not directly run its own instruction set?
Hints
- Software from 1995 still runs. Ask what that constrains, and what it leaves free.
- The instruction set is a contract. What sits below it?
Show the answer
C. Because a fixed internal format pipelines better than the legacy encoding
Why
The instruction set is the promise and the microarchitecture is free to change, so decades of binaries keep working while the silicon underneath is redesigned repeatedly. It costs real transistors to decode, and the compatibility is worth more, which is abstraction earning its keep at the hardware level.
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