A processor chip is used for application in which 30% of execution time is spent on floating point addition. For the new model of the processor, the design team has come up with redesign the floating point adder to make it twice as fast. What will be possible maximum speed up by this redesign? 

The correct answer is 1.18 

Key PointsTo answer this question, we can use Amdahl's law, which is used to find the maximum improvement to an overall system when only part of the system is improved. The formula is:

• \(\text{Speedup} = \frac{1}{(1 - p) + \frac{p}{s}}\)

where:

• p is the proportion of the execution time that the part to be improved contributes to the system and
• s is the speedup for that part.

In this problem, 30% of the execution time (or 0.30) is spent on floating point addition, so p = 0.30.

The floating point addition is being made twice as fast, so s = 2.

Let's plug these values into Amdahl's law to calculate the speedup.

\(\text{Speedup} = \frac{1}{(1 - 0.30) + \frac{0.30}{2}}\)

\(\text{Speedup} = \frac{1}{0.70 + 0.15} = \frac{1}{0.85} \)

\(\text{Speedup} \approx 1.18 \)

Thus, a maximum speedup of 1.18 could be achieved by making the floating point addition twice as fast. Therefore, the correct answer is option 3) 1.18.