Large list of Intel interview questions

By admin | July 26, 2005

1. Insights of an inverter. Explain the working?
2. Insights of a 2 input NOR gate. Explain the working?
3. Insights of a 2 input NAND gate. Explain the working?
4. Implement F= not (AB+CD) using CMOS gates?
5. Insights of a pass gate. Explain the working?
6. Why do we need both PMOS and NMOS transistors to implement a pass gate?
7. What does the above code synthesize to?
8. Cross section of a PMOS transistor?
9. Cross section of an NMOS transistor?
10. What is a D-latch? Write the VHDL Code for it?
11. Differences between D-Latch and D flip-flop?
12. Implement D flip-flop with a couple of latches? Write a VHDL Code for a D flip-flop?
13. What is latchup? Explain the methods used to prevent it?
14. What is charge sharing?
15. While using logic design, explain the various steps that r followed to obtain the desirable design in a well
defined manner?
16. Why is OOPS called OOPS? (C++)
17. What is a linked list? Explain the 2 fields in a linked list?
18. Implement a 2 I/P and gate using Tran gates?
19. Insights of a 4bit adder/Sub Circuit?
20. For f = AB+CD if B is S-a-1, what r the test vectors needed to detect the fault?
21. Explain various adders and diff between them?
22. Explain the working of 4-bit Up/down Counter?
23. A circuit has 1 input X and 2 outputs A and B. If X = HIGH for 4 clock ticks, A = 1. If X = LOW for 4 clock
ticks, B = 1. Draw a state diagram for this Spec?
24. Advantages and disadvantages of Mealy and Moore?
25. Id vs. Vds Characteristics of NMOS and PMOS transistors?
26. Explain the operation of a 6T-SRAM cell?
27. Differences between DRAM and SRAM?
28. Implement a function with both ratioed and domino logic and merits and demerits of each logic?
29. Given a circuit and asked to tell the output voltages of that circuit?
30. How can you construct both PMOS and NMOS on a single substrate?
31. What happens when the gate oxide is very thin?
32. What is setup time and hold time?
33. Write a pseudo code for sorting the numbers in an array?
34. What is pipelining and how can we increase throughput using pipelining?
35. Explain about stuck at fault models, scan design, BIST and IDDQ testing?
36. What is SPICE?
37. Differences between IRSIM and SPICE?
38. Differences between netlist of HSPICE and Spectre?
39. What is FPGA?
40. Draw the Cross Section of an Inverter? Clearly show all the connections between M1 and poly, M1 and
diffusion layers etc?
41. Draw the Layout of an Inverter?
42. If the current thru the poly is 20nA and the contact can take a max current of 10nA how would u overcome
the problem?
43. Implement F = AB+C using CMOS gates?
44. Working of a 2-stage OPAMP?
45. 6-T XOR gate?
46. Differences between blocking and Non-blocking statements in Verilog?
47. Differences between Signals and Variables in VHDL? If the same code is written using Signals and Variables
what does it synthesize to?
48. Differences between functions and Procedures in VHDL?
49. What is component binding?
50. What is polymorphism? (C++)
51. What is hot electron effect?
52. Define threshold voltage?
53. Factors affecting Power Consumption on a chip?
54. Explain Clock Skew?
55. Why do we use a Clock tree?
56. Explain the various Capacitances associated with a transistor and which one of them is the most prominent?
57. Explain the Various steps in Synthesis?
58. Explain ASIC Design Flow?
59. Explain Custom Design Flow?
60. Why is Extraction performed?
61. What is LVS, DRC?
62. Who provides the DRC rules?
63. What is validation?
64. What is Cross Talk?
65. Different ways of implementing a comparator?
66. What r the phenomenon which come into play when the devices are scaled to the sub-micron lengths?
67. What is clock feed through?
68. Implement an Inverter using a single transistor?
69. What is Fowler-Nordheim Tunneling?
70. Insights of a Tri-state inverter?
71. If an/ap = 0.5, an/ap = 1, an/ap = 3, for 3 inverters draw the transfer characteristics?
72. Differences between Array and Booth Multipliers?
73. Explain the concept of a Clock Divider Circuit? Write a VHDL code for the same?
74. Which gate is normally preferred while implementing circuits using CMOS logic, NAND or NOR? Why?
75. Insights of a Tri-State Inverter?
76. Basic Stuff related to Perl?
77. Have you studied buses? What types?
78. Have you studied pipelining? List the 5 stages of a 5 stage pipeline. Assuming 1 clock per stage, what is the
latency of an instruction in a 5 stage machine? What is the throughput of this machine ?
79. How many bit combinations are there in a byte?
80. For a single computer processor computer system, what is the purpose of a processor cache and describe its
operation?
81. Explain the operation considering a two processor computer system with a cache for each processor.
82. What are the main issues associated with multiprocessor caches and how might you solve them?
83. Explain the difference between write through and write back cache.
84. Are you familiar with the term MESI?
85. Are you familiar with the term snooping?
 86. Describe a finite state machine that will detect three consecutive coin tosses (of one coin) that results in
heads.
87. In what cases do you need to double clock a signal before presenting it to a synchronous state machine?
88. You have a driver that drives a long signal & connects to an input device. At the input device there is either
overshoot, undershoot or signal threshold violations, what can be done to correct this problem?
89. What are the total number of lines written by you in C/C++? What is the most complicated/valuable
program written in C/C++?
90. What compiler was used?
91. What is the difference between = and == in C?
92. Are you familiar with VHDL and/or Verilog?
93. What types of CMOS memories have you designed? What were their size? Speed?
94. What work have you done on full chip Clock and Power distribution? What process technology and budgets
were used?
95. What types of I/O have you designed? What were their size? Speed? Configuration? Voltage requirements?
96. Process technology? What package was used and how did you model the package/system? What parasitic
effects were considered?
97. What types of high speed CMOS circuits have you designed?
98. What transistor level design tools are you proficient with? What types of designs were they used on?
99. What products have you designed which have entered high volume production?
100. What was your role in the silicon evaluation/product ramp? What tools did you use?
101. If not into production, how far did you follow the design and why did not you see it into production?

CPU engineer interview questions

By admin | April 10, 2006
1. For a single computer processor computer system, what is the purpose of a processor cache and describe its
operation?
2. Explain the operation considering a two processor computer system with a cache for each processor.
3. What are the main issues associated with multiprocessor caches and how might you solve it?
4. Explain the difference between write through and write back cache.
5. Are you familiar with the term MESI?
6. Are you familiar with the term snooping?
7. Describe a finite state machine that will detect three consecutive coin tosses (of one coin) that results in
heads.
8. In what cases do you need to double clock a signal before presenting it to a synchronous state machine?
9. You have a driver that drives a long signal and connects to an input device. At the input device there is either
overshoot, undershoot or signal threshold violations, what can be done to correct this problem?

Hardware architecture interview questions

By admin | May 11, 2006
1. Are you familiar with the term MESI?
2. Are you familiar with the term snooping?
3. Describe a finite state machine that will detect three consecutive coin tosses (of one coin) that results in
heads.
4. In what cases do you need to double clock a signal before presenting it to a synchronous state machine?
5. You have a driver that drives a long signal & connects to an input device. At the input device there is either
overshoot, undershoot or signal threshold violations, what can be done to correct this problem?
6. For a single computer processor computer system, what is the purpose of a processor cache and describe its
operation?
 7. Explain the operation considering a two processor computer system with a cache for each processor.
8. What are the main issues associated with multiprocessor caches and how might you solve it?
9. Explain the difference between write through and write back cache.
10. What are the total number of lines written in C/C++? What is the most complicated/valuable program
written in C/C++?
11. What compiler was used?
12. Have you studied busses? What types?
13. Have you studied pipelining? List the 5 stages of a 5 stage pipeline. Assuming 1 clock per stage, what is the
latency of an instruction in a 5 stage machine? What is the throughput of this machine ?
14. How many bit combinations are there in a byte?
15. What is the difference between = and == in C?
16. Are you familiar with VHDL and/or Verilog?

OS interview questions
By admin | September 22, 2005

1. What is MUTEX ?
2. What isthe difference between a thread and a process?
3. What is INODE?
4. Explain the working of Virtual Memory.
5. How does Windows NT supports Multitasking?
6. Explain the Unix Kernel.
7. What is Concurrency? Expain with example Deadlock and Starvation.
8. What are your solution strategies for Dining Philosophers Problem ?
9. Explain Memory Partitioning, Paging, Segmentation.
10. Explain Scheduling.
11. Operating System Security.
12. What is Semaphore?
13. Explain the following file systems : NTFS, Macintosh(HPFS), FAT .
14. What are the different process states?
15. What is Marshalling?
16. Define and explain COM?
17. What is Marshalling?
18. Difference - Loading and Linking ?

Windows sysadmin interview questions

By admin | March 29, 2006

1. What is Active Directory schema?

2. What are the domain functional level in Windows Server 2003?
3. What are the forest functional level in Windows Server 2003?
4. What is global catalog server?
5. How we can raise domain functional & forest functional level in Windows Server 2003?
6. Which is the deafult protocol used in directory services?
7. What is IPv6?
8. What is the default domain functional level in Windows Server 2003?
9. What are the physical & logical components of ADS
10. In which domain functional level, we can rename domain name?
11. What is multimaster replication?
 12. What is a site?
13. Which is the command used to remove active directory from a domain controler?
14. How we can create console, which contain schema?
15. What is trust?
16. What is the file thats responsible for keep all Active Directory database?

Windows admin interview questions (includes

Vista)
By admin | November 29, 2007

1. What is Active Directory?

2. What is LDAP?
3. Can you connect Active Directory to other 3rd-party Directory Services? Name a few options.
4. Where is the AD database held? What other folders are related to AD?
5. What is the SYSVOL folder?
6. Name the AD NCs and replication issues for each NC
7. What are application partitions? When do I use them
8. How do you create a new application partition
9. How do you view replication properties for AD partitions and DCs?
10. What is the Global Catalog?
11. How do you view all the GCs in the forest?
12. Why not make all DCs in a large forest as GCs?
13. Trying to look at the Schema, how can I do that?
14. What are the Support Tools? Why do I need them?
15. What is LDP? What is REPLMON? What is ADSIEDIT? What is NETDOM? What is REPADMIN?
16. What are sites? What are they used for?
17. Whats the difference between a site links schedule and interval?
18. What is the KCC?
19. What is the ISTG? Who has that role by default?
20. What are the requirements for installing AD on a new server?
21. What can you do to promote a server to DC if youre in a remote location with slow WAN link?
22. How can you forcibly remove AD from a server, and what do you do later? Can I get user passwords
from the AD database?
23. What tool would I use to try to grab security related packets from the wire?
24. Name some OU design considerations.
25. What is tombstone lifetime attribute?
26. What do you do to install a new Windows 2003 DC in a Windows 2000 AD?
27. What do you do to install a new Windows 2003 R2 DC in a Windows 2003 AD?
28. How would you find all users that have not logged on since last month?
29. What are the DS* commands?
30. Whats the difference between LDIFDE and CSVDE? Usage considerations?
31. What are the FSMO roles? Who has them by default? What happens when each one fails?
32. What FSMO placement considerations do you know of?
33. I want to look at the RID allocation table for a DC. What do I do?
34. Whats the difference between transferring a FSMO role and seizing one? Which one should you NOT seize?
Why?
35. How do you configure a stand-by operation master for any of the roles?
36. How do you backup AD?
 37. How do you restore AD?
38. How do you change the DS Restore admin password?
39. Why cant you restore a DC that was backed up 4 months ago?
40. What are GPOs?
41. What is the order in which GPOs are applied?
42. Name a few benefits of using GPMC.
43. What are the GPC and the GPT? Where can I find them?
44. What are GPO links? What special things can I do to them?
45. What can I do to prevent inheritance from above?
46. How can I override blocking of inheritance?
47. How can you determine what GPO was and was not applied for a user? Name a few ways to do that.
48. A user claims he did not receive a GPO, yet his user and computer accounts are in the right OU, and
everyone else there gets the GPO. What will you look for?
49. Name a few differences in Vista GPOs
50. Name some GPO settings in the computer and user parts.
51. What are administrative templates?
52. Whats the difference between software publishing and assigning?
53. Can I deploy non-MSI software with GPO?
54. You want to standardize the desktop environments (wallpaper, My Documents, Start menu, printers etc.) on
the computers in one department. How would you do that?

4 screening questions for Windows admin

By admin | January 27, 2008

1. What is Active Directory?

2. What is LDAP?
3. Can you connect Active Directory to other 3rd-party Directory Services? Name a few options.
4. Where is the AD database held? What other folders are related to AD?
5. What is the SYSVOL folder?
6. Name the AD NCs and replication issues for each NC
7. What are application partitions? When do I use them
8. How do you create a new application partition
9. How do you view replication properties for AD partitions and DCs?
10. What is the Global Catalog?
11. How do you view all the GCs in the forest?
12. Why not make all DCs in a large forest as GCs?
13. Trying to look at the Schema, how can I do that?
14. What are the Support Tools? Why do I need them?
15. What is LDP? What is REPLMON? What is ADSIEDIT? What is NETDOM? What is REPADMIN?
16. What are sites? What are they used for?
17. Whats the difference between a site links schedule and interval?
18. What is the KCC?
19. What is the ISTG? Who has that role by default?
20. What are the requirements for installing AD on a new server?
21. What can you do to promote a server to DC if youre in a remote location with slow WAN link?
22. How can you forcibly remove AD from a server, and what do you do later? Can I get user passwords
from the AD database?
23. What tool would I use to try to grab security related packets from the wire?
 24. Name some OU design considerations.
25. What is tombstone lifetime attribute?
26. What do you do to install a new Windows 2003 DC in a Windows 2000 AD?
27. What do you do to install a new Windows 2003 R2 DC in a Windows 2003 AD?
28. How would you find all users that have not logged on since last month?
29. What are the DS* commands?
30. Whats the difference between LDIFDE and CSVDE? Usage considerations?
31. What are the FSMO roles? Who has them by default? What happens when each one fails?
32. What FSMO placement considerations do you know of?
33. I want to look at the RID allocation table for a DC. What do I do?
34. Whats the difference between transferring a FSMO role and seizing one? Which one should you NOT seize?
Why?
35. How do you configure a stand-by operation master for any of the roles?
36. How do you backup AD?
37. How do you restore AD?
38. How do you change the DS Restore admin password?
39. Why cant you restore a DC that was backed up 4 months ago?
40. What are GPOs?
41. What is the order in which GPOs are applied?
42. Name a few benefits of using GPMC.
43. What are the GPC and the GPT? Where can I find them?
44. What are GPO links? What special things can I do to them?
45. What can I do to prevent inheritance from above?
46. How can I override blocking of inheritance?
47. How can you determine what GPO was and was not applied for a user? Name a few ways to do that.
48. A user claims he did not receive a GPO, yet his user and computer accounts are in the right OU, and
everyone else there gets the GPO. What will you look for?
49. Name a few differences in Vista GPOs
50. Name some GPO settings in the computer and user parts.
51. What are administrative templates?
52. Whats the difference between software publishing and assigning?
53. Can I deploy non-MSI software with GPO?
54. You want to standardize the desktop environments (wallpaper, My Documents, Start menu, printers etc.) on
the computers in one department. How would you do that?

Sysadmin sample interview questions

By admin | June 12, 2008

1. Why was it that you left the last job that you were at?
2. What do you think your top 3 strengths are?
3. What is most important to you in a job?
4. Major difference between FAT and NTFS on a local machine?
5. How many passwords by default are remembered in an active directory?
6. What is a C name record (in DNS)?
7. What is a LM host file used for?
8. Can you name the FSMO roles in active directory?
9. What tolls would you use to gage the effect of group policy before using any tools?
10. Explain Active Directory sites and services and linked cost routing?
 11. When would you use circular logging and exchange?
12. Exhange related question - as an echange admin if someone asked you how to determine if mail was
delivered or not which tool would you use?
13. Can you explain how you configurated SMS.
14. Rate yourself in 3 different areas (1-5, 5 is expert)

Network developer interview questions

By admin | July 26, 2005

1. What ports does FTP traffic travel over?

2. What ports does mail traffic utilize?
3. What ports do HTTP and HTTPS use?
4. Why is NTP required in an NFS network?
5. Name some common mal software on the server side
6. What is CPAN? How do you access it?
7. What is PEAR?
8. What advantages does mod_perl have over a perl CGI?
9. What is required to do SSL in Apache 1.x?
10. What is Tcl?
11. What is a servlet engine/container?
12. What is BIND?
13. Name the steps to setup a slave zone in BIND
14. Name the steps to setup a primary zone in BIND
15. What commands would you use under Solaris or Linux to modify/view an LDAP tree?

Windows Server and MS Exchange interview

questions
By admin | August 18, 2005

1. What is DHCP? How we configure DHCP?

2. What are the ways to configure DNS & Zones?
3. What are the types of backup? Explain each?
4. What are Levels of RAID 0, 1, 5? Which one is better & why?
5. What are FMSO Roles? List them.
6. Describe the lease process of the DHCP server.
7. Disaster Recovery Plan?
8. What is scope & super scope?
9. Differences between Win 2000 Server & Advanced Server?
10. Logical Diagram of Active Directory? What is the difference between child domain & additional domain
server?
11. FTP, NNTP, SMTP, KERBEROS, DNS, DHCP, POP3 port numbers?
12. What is Kerberos? Which version is currently used by Windows? How does Kerberos work?
MICROSOFT EXCHANGE S ERVER INTERVIEW QUES TIONS
1. Distribution List?
2. GAL, Routing Group, Stm files, Eseutil & ininteg - what are they used for?
3. What is MIME & MAPI?
4. List the services of Exchange Server 2000?
5. How would you recover Exchange server when the log file is corrupted?
Network engineer interview questions
By admin | September 22, 2005

1. User(s) are complaining of delays when using the network. What would you do?
2. What are some of the problems associated with operating a switched LAN?
3. Name some of the ways of combining TCP/IP traffic and SNA traffic over the same link.
4. What sort of cabling is suitable for Fast Ethernet protocols?
5. What is a Class D IP address?
6. Why do I sometimes lose a servers address when using more than one server?
7. What is Firewall?
8. How do I monitor the activity of sockets?
9. How would I put my socket in non-blocking mode?
10. What are RAW sockets?
11. What is the role of TCP protocol and IP protocol.
12. What is UDP?
13. How can I make my server a daemon?
14. How should I choose a port number for my server?
15. Layers in TCP/IP
16. How can I be sure that a UDP message is received?
17. How to get IP header of a UDP message
18. Writing UDP/SOCK_DGRAM applications
19. How many bytes in an IPX network address?
20. What is the difference between MUTEX and Semaphore?
21. What is priority inversion?
22. Different Solutions to dining philosophers problem.
23. What is a message queue?
24. Questions on Shared Memory.
25. What is DHCP?
26. Working of ping, telnet, gopher.
27. Can I connect two computers to internet using same line ?

Some PC and networking questions

By admin | October 26, 2005

1. Workers can not print from the printer, there user log on are correct and are allowed to print from that
printer in active directory. How would you resolve this issue?
2. What is the difference between hub and switch?
3. Your hard drive is partitioned as follows: 8 gigs for OS drive C, 8 gigs for Hot Swappable dirve D and rest is
free as dirve E. Your drive C crashes, how would you reboot your system without installing a new operating
system?
4. Your computer gives you non-disk error before you log on what would you do to make your computer
work?

Network developer interview questions

By admin | October 26, 2005

1. How does TCP handshake work?

2. How does SSL handshake work?
3. What is the difference between passive FTP and active FTP?
 4. What is the difference between socket and session?
5. How does network management station work?
6. What are the different phases in VPN establishment?
7. How does DH (deffie helman) work?
8. What is TCP window sizing?
9. What is MTU?

Windows sysadmin interview questions

By admin | March 29, 2006

1. What is Active Directory schema?

2. What are the domain functional level in Windows Server 2003?
3. What are the forest functional level in Windows Server 2003?
4. What is global catalog server?
5. How we can raise domain functional & forest functional level in Windows Server 2003?
6. Which is the deafult protocol used in directory services?
7. What is IPv6?
8. What is the default domain functional level in Windows Server 2003?
9. What are the physical & logical components of ADS
10. In which domain functional level, we can rename domain name?
11. What is multimaster replication?
12. What is a site?
13. Which is the command used to remove active directory from a domain controler?
14. How we can create console, which contain schema?
15. What is trust?
16. What is the file thats responsible for keep all Active Directory database?
17. OSPF
1. Describe OSPF in your own words.
2. OSPF areas, the purpose of having each of them
3. Types of OSPF LSA, the purpose of each LSA type
4. What exact LSA type you can see in different areas
5. How OSPF establishes neighboor relation, what the stages are
6. If OSPF router is stucked in each stage what the problem is and how to troubleshoot it
7. OSPF hierarchy in the single or multi areas. Cool OSPF behavior in broadcast and nonbroadcast
8. Draw the diagram of typical OSPF network and explain generally how it works, DR, BDR, election,
ASBR, ABR, route redistribution and summarization
18. STP
1. How it works and the purpose
2. Diff types (SSTP, MSTP, RSTP) Cisco - PVST/PVST+
3. Root election
4. Diff. port stages and timing for convergence
5. Draw the typical diagram and explain how diff types of STP work
6. What ports are blocking or forwarding
7. How it works if there are topology changes
19. ACLs
1. What are they
2. Diff types
3. Write an example if you want to allow and to deny
 4. Well-known port numbers (DNS - 53 and etc)
20. QOS
1. What is that
2. What is the diff b/w L2 and L3 QoS
3. How it works
21. Network
1. Draw the typical network diagram you have to deal with
2. Explain how it works
3. What part of it you are responsible
4. firewall, what is that, how it works, how it is diff from ACLs
5. What problems with the network you had had and how you solved it.
6. What are the ways to troubleshoot the network, techniques, commands
7. Network security, ways to achieve it
22. Switching
1. VLANs
2. STP
3. How a L2 switch works with broadcast, unicast, multicast, known/unknown traffic
4. VRRP, GLBP
5. port monitoring and mirroring
6. L3 switch, how it works
7. PIM sparse and dense modes