In my experience a data hazard can be encountered on CISC as well as RISC processors.user366312 said:Summary: Whenever I find something on hazard, I find it in the context of RISC processors like MIPS.
Are WAW and WAR hazards unique to RISC processors?
Or, CISCs can also encounter those hazards?
WAW (Write After Write) and WAR (Write After Read) hazards refer to potential conflicts that can occur in the instruction pipeline of a processor. In a WAW hazard, a write instruction is trying to write to a register or memory location that is already being written to by a previous instruction. In a WAR hazard, a write instruction is trying to write to a location that is being read by a subsequent instruction.
No, WAW and WAR hazards can occur in both RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computing) and CISC (Complex Instruction Set Computing) processors. However, they are more common in RISC processors due to their simpler instruction sets and reliance on pipelining to improve performance.
WAW and WAR hazards can result in incorrect data being written to a register or memory location, leading to errors in program execution. To prevent these hazards, the processor must stall the pipeline or use other techniques such as register renaming, which can slow down the processor and decrease performance.
No, it is not possible to completely eliminate WAW and WAR hazards in a processor. However, they can be minimized through techniques such as out-of-order execution, which allows instructions to be executed in a different order than they appear in the program, reducing the likelihood of conflicts.
Programmers can avoid WAW and WAR hazards by carefully designing their code and understanding the instruction pipeline of the processor they are using. This includes avoiding dependencies between instructions, using synchronization techniques, and optimizing code for the specific processor architecture.