Central processing unit
Also referred to as a central processor unit is the hardware
within a computer that carries out the instructions of a computer program by performing
the basic , logical, and input/output operations of the system. The term has
been in use in the computer industry at least since the early 1960s the form,
design, and implementation of CPUs have changed over the course of their
history, but their fundamental operation remains much the same.
A computer can have more than one this is called
multiprocessing. All modern CPUs are microprocessors, meaning contained on a
single chip. Some integrated circuits can contain multiple CPUs on a single
chip; those ICs are called multi-core processors. Can also contain peripheral devices, and
other components of a computer system; this is called a system on a chip.
Two typical components of a CPU are the arithmetic logic
unit ALU, which performs arithmetic and logical operations, and the control
unit, which extracts instructions from memory and decodes and executes them,
calling on the when necessary.
Not all computational systems rely on a central processing
unit. An array processor or vector processor has multiple parallel computing
elements, with no one unit considered the "center". In the distribute computing
model, problems are solve interconnected set of processors.
