Suppose you have overclocked a processor to 8,722.78MHz. This processor can execute one instruction per cycle. Further let us suppose that the system is accessing a magnetic disk (HD) with an access time of 11ms.


Required:

a. Determine the number of instructions the CPU must pause when waiting for a read request for data from the HD to complete.

b. Suppose that you are designing the machine architecture and want to guarantee the CPU can obtain data from memory within 4 CPU cycles. Given that the address has to travel from the CPU to the memory unit (MMU) and that the data has to travel from memory to the CPU, what is the maximum distance between CPU and the MMU if the signal on the memory bus propagates at 75% of the speed of light?