21. Which of the following can easily convert to a non-volatile memory?
A. SRAM
B. DRAM
C. DDR SRAM
D. Asynchronous DRAM
Answer: A
The low power consumption makes SRAM easily convertible to non-volatile memory, by adding a small battery it can retain its data even when the main power is lost.
22. Which memory storage is widely used in PCs and Embedded Systems?
A. SRAM
B. DRAM
C. Flash memory
D. EEPROM
Answer: B
DRAM is used in PCs and Embedded systems because of its low cost. SRAM, flash memory, and EEPROM are more costly than DRAM.
23. Which of the following memory technology is highly denser?
A. DRAM
B. SRAM
C. EPROM
D. Flash memory
Answer: A
DRAM is highly denser and cheaper because it only uses a single capacitor for storing one bit.
24. Which is the storage element in DRAM?
A. inductor
B. capacitor
C. resistor
D. MOSFET
Answer: B
DRAM uses a small capacitor whose voltage represents a binary zero which is used as a storage element in DRAM in which a single transistor cell is used to store each bit of data.
25. Which one of the following is a storage element in SRAM?
A. capacitor
B. inductor
C. transistor
D. resistor
Answer: C
Four to six transistors are used to store a single bit of data and form a flip-flop logic gate and thus SRAM is faster in accessing data.
26. Which of the following is more volatile?
A. SRAM
B. DRAM
C. ROM
D. RAM
Answer: B
DRAM is said to be more volatile because it has a capacitor as its storage element in which the data disappears when the capacitor loses its charge so even when the device is powered the data can be lost.
27. What is the size of a trench capacitor in DRAM?
A. 1 Mb
B. 4-256 Mb
C. 8-128 Mb
D. 64-128 Mb
Answer: B
Trench capacitors can store from 4-256 Mb but planar capacitors can store up to 1 Mb.
28. Which of the following capacitor can store more data in DRAM?
A. planar capacitor
B. trench capacitor
C. stacked-cell
D. non-polar capacitor
Answer: C
Stacked-cell can store greater than 1 Gb. The planar capacitor can store up to 1 Mb and the trench capacitor can store 4-256 Mb.
29. In which of the memories, does the data disappear?
A. SRAM
B. DRAM
C. Flash memory
D. EPROM
Answer: B
Both SRAM and DRAM are volatile memories and flash memory and EPROM are non-volatile memories. DRAM has a storage element like a capacitor whose charge loses gradually thereby losing data.
30. Which of the following is the main factor that determines the memory capacity?
A. number of transistors
B. the number of capacitors
C. size of the transistor
D. size of the capacitor
Answer: A
The chip capacity is dependent on the number of transistors that can be fabricated on the silicon, and DRAM offers more storage capacity than SRAM.
31. What does VRAM stand for?
A. video RAM
B. Verilog RAM
C. virtual RAM
D. volatile RAM
Answer: A
Video RAM is a derivative of DRAM. It functions as a DRAM and has additional functions to access data for video hardware for creating the display.
32. What does TCR stand for?
A. temperature-compensated refresh
B. temperature-compensated recovery
C. texas CAS-RAS
D. temperature CAS-RAS
Answer: A
The temperature-compensated refresh is one of the refreshing techniques used for extending the battery life by reducing the refresh rate.
33. How many data lines does 256*4 have?
A. 256
B. 8
C. 4
D. 32
Answer: C
There are four data lines in the memory and these different organizations of memory and these different organizations of memory are apparent when upgrading memory and it also determines how many chips are needed.
34. How is the number of chips required is determined?
A. number of data lines
B. the minimum number of data
C. width of the data path from the processor
D. number of data lines and the width of the data path from the processor
Answer: D
The minimum number of chips is determined by the number of data lines and the width of the data path from the processor. For example, the MC6800 family has a 16-bit wide datapath, 16*1 devices, 4*4 or 2*8 devices are needed.
35. Where is the memory address stored in a C program?
A. stack
B. pointer
C. register
D. accumulator
Answer: B
The memory model is defined by a range of memory address which is accessible to the program. For example, in the C program, the memory address is stored in the pointer.
36. Which is the term that is used to refer to the order of bytes?
A. endianness
B. memory organization
C. bit
D. register
Answer: A
Endianness defines the order of bytes, that is, whether it is big-endian or little-endian. The former represents the higher-order bits and the latter represents the lower-order bits.
37. Which of the following processors uses big-endian representation?
A. 8086
B. ARM
C. PowerPC
D. Zilog Z80
Answer: C
IBM’s PowerPC uses big-endian representation whereas 8086, ARM, and Zilog Z80 use little representation.
38. Which statement is true for a cache memory?
A. memory unit which communicates directly with the CPU
B. provides backup storage
C. a very high-speed memory to increase the speed of the processor
D. secondary storage
Answer: C
The RAM is the primary storage that directly communicates with the CPU. ROM is the secondary storage. Disk drives are capable of providing backup storage and the cache memory is a small high-speed memory that increases the speed of the processor.
39. Which of the following memory organization have the entire memory available to the processor at all times?
A. segmented addressing
B. paging
C. virtual address
D. linear address
Answer: D
There are two types of memory organization, linear addressing in which the entire memory is available to the processor at all times as in Motorola 6800 and the other is segmented addressing where the memory space is divided into several segments and the processor is limited to access the program instructions and data which are located in particular segments.
40. How many memory locations can be accessed by 8086?
A. 1 M
B. 2 M
C. 3 M
D. 4 M
Answer: A
The 8086 processor has a 20-bit address bus, hence it can access a memory of 220-1 M locations.