Research: CPU [Day 17/18/19]

CPU, which is short for central processing unit, is basically the brain of the computer. It's the hardware within the computer that carries out instructions of computer programs. There are two main components of the CPU which are the arithmetic logic unit(ALU) and the control unit(CU). ALU performs arithmetic and logical operations while the CU takes in the instruction from memory and decodes and execute them, calling on the ALU if needed. A computer is capable of holding more than one CPU and that some integrated circuits(IC) can have multiple CPUs on a single chip which are called multi-core processor. The integer size of the CPU varies and that it sets the hardware limit of the range of integer the software run by the CPU can utilize(Ex: 2^8 or 256 discrete numbers). There is a special storage area within the CPU called register. Before data can be processed, they all must be represented in a register. The number of register that a CPU possesses determines the power and speed of the CPU(Ex: 32-bit CPU is one in which each register is 32-bits wide which means each CPU instruction can manipulate 32 bits of data). The last thing to the CPU is the clock speed/rate. The clock rate is the speed at which the microprocessor executes its instructions. There is a fixed number of cycles to the clock to be able to perform the instruction and with that being said, the faster the clock, the more instructions it can carry out per second.