Glossary
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29 September 1997 – Subject To Change
reliability
The probability a device or system will not fail to perform its intended functions dur-
ing a specified time interval when operated under stated conditions.
reset
An action that causes a logic unit to interrupt the task it is performing and go to its
initialized state.
RISC
Reduced instruction set computing. A computer with an instruction set that is paired
down and reduced in complexity so that most instructions can be performed in a sin-
gle processor cycle. High-level compilers synthesize the more complex, least fre-
quently used instructions by breaking them down into simpler instructions. This
approach allows the RISC architecture to implement a small, hardware-assisted
instruction set, thus eliminating the need for microcode.
ROM
Read-only memory.
RTL
Register-transfer logic.
SAM
Serial access memory.
SBO
Should be one.
SBZ
Should be zero.
scheduling
The process of ordering instruction execution to obtain optimum performance.
set-associative
A form of cache organization in which the location of a data block in main memory
constrains, but does not completely determine, its location in the cache. Set-associa-
tive organization is a compromise between direct-mapped organization, in which
data from a given address in main memory has only one possible cache location, and