Pipelining allows a computer to process multiple instructions at the same time by breaking down instruction processing into stages. In a 4-stage pipeline, while one instruction is in the execute stage another is in the fetch stage, allowing the CPU to complete more instructions per cycle. Pipelining increases performance by keeping the CPU's processing units busy at each stage rather than idle between instructions. A computer is likely using pipelining if processing multiple instructions simultaneously results in higher overall performance than processing one instruction at a time.

1. how can you determine if a computer is using pipelining?
Solution
In older computers when there wasnt pipelining single core computer systems were used where
cpu had to finish execution of one instruction before starting of another.But due to the advent of
technology now computers are processing multiple instructions at a time.Here each core is using
the technique of pipelining.
Consider a 4 stage pipeline
1. fetch instruction
2.Decode instruction
3.execute instruction
4. store the result
so earlier for every instruction 4 cycles were required and 2 instructions took 8 cycles.But with
pipelining while cpu is executing one instruction it is simultaneously fetching the next
instruction and by this method 7 cycles are enough to execute 4 instructions and also completing
some stages for atmost 7 instructions.
Without pipelining the ALU and FPU would stay idle for most of the part.Nowadays systems can
have pipelines of 4 to 20 stages and the machne cycle is broken down into as many parts as
needed to match the number of stages used.Pipelining increases the number of machine cycles
completed per second, which increases the number of instructions performed per second so by
observing these in a system which results in higher performance if pipelining is present in your
system.