Familiar from such everyday activities as getting food in cafeteria where one processes one person per "clock cycle" where |
clock cycle here is maximum time anybody takes at a single "stage" where stage is here component of meal (salad, entrée etc.) |
Note any one person takes about 5 clock cycles in this pipeline but the pipeline processes one person per clock cycle |
Pipeline has problem if there is a "stall" -- here that one of the people wants an entrée which needs to be fetched from kitchen. This delays everybody! |
In computer case, stall is caused typically by data not being ready for a particular instruction |