Solution

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.