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Learn all about CPUs.| Category | | | Summary | | Ever wondered about the various parts and form factors of a CPU? Click 'read more' to find out! |
| | Body | The CPU performs all the arithmetic, logic, and computing actions of a computer. You may see your PC as a word processor, a game, and Internet browser, your e-mail, or any of the other tasks you perform. In fact, each of these is software made up of thousands of instructions that the CPU executes one at a time to create the actions you see and use. The processor is used interchangeably for the electronic circuitry that uses digital logic to perform the instructions of your software.
A microprocessor is an integrated circuit that contains millions of transistors interconnected by small aluminum wires. Its processing capabilities control and direct the activities of the computer by interacting with the other electronic components on the motherboard, such as the main memory, bus, cache memory, and device interfaces.
Parts of a CPU
1. ALU (Arithmetic and Logic Unit): The ALU is responsible for numerical calculations (except those done by the FPU) and comparative logic functions, including all add, subtract, divide, multiply, equal to, greater than, less than, and other arithmetic and logic operations.
2. BIU (Bus Interface Unit): The BIU watches over the transfer of data over the buss system between devices and the CPU. It also serves as the interface point for the CPU and the external bus for the CU.
3. CU (Control Unit): The control unit controls the processor's functions by telling the other parts of the CPU how to operate, what data is used, and where to put the results.
4. Decode Unit: Most program instructions are combinations of simpler instructions. The decode unit decodes incoming instructions into individual CPU commands.
5. FPU (Floating Point Unit): The FPU handles the floating point operations for the ALU and CU. Floating point operations involve arithmetic on numbers with decimal places and higher math operations such as trigonometry and logarithms. The FPU also may be called the math coprocessor, the Numerical Processing Unit (NPU), or the Numerical Data Processor (NDP).
6. Memory Management Unit (MMU): The MMU handles the addressing and cataloging of where data is stored in RAM and cache memory. Any data that the CPU needs from memory is requested from the MMU. The MMU manages memory segmentation and paging allocations and translates all logical addressing into physical addressing.
7. Pre-Fetch Unit: Preloads the CPU's instruction registers with instructions whenever the BIU is idle, which allows the CPU to look ahead at future instructions.
8. PTU (Protection Test Unit): Works with the CPU to monitor that functions are carried out correctly. If it detects something done improperly, it generates an error signal.
9. Registers: Built into the CPU are a number of holding areas and buffers used to temporarily hold data, addresses, and instructions being passed around between the CPU's components.
The actual CPU and its associate electronic circuits are packaged in a protective outer packaging. When you look at a processor, it's the packaging you see and not the CPU itself. Usually, the processor's packaging is ceramic or plastic.
The outer covering of the processor protects its core that contains the microchip and the wiring that connects the chip to the processor's mounting pins. A variety of packaging types have been used for processors.
1. PGS (Pin Grid Array): Common in early processors, the mounting pins are located on the bottom of the chip in concentric squares. The early Pentium chips used a variation that staggered the pin pattern called the Staggered PGA (SPGA).
2. PBGA (Plastic Ball Grid Array): The main difference between this packaging technology and the PGA is that the PBGA doesn't have mounting pings projecting from the bottom of the chip, which eliminates the threat of bent pins on the bottom of the processor. Otherwise, these package styles look similar.
3. SEC (Single Edge Connector): You might find a few variations on the name of this packaging technology, including the Single Edge Contact Cartridge (SECC) and others. They all boil down to a packaging style that is mounted perpendicular to the motherboard into a single slot. This style made cooling the processor easier.
Two general types of mountings that are used to mount processors to the motherboard are sockets and slots. Most processors are available in only one mounting style, disregarding ceramic versus plastic.
There have been a variety of socket types used for computer microprocessors.
1. Socket 4: Mounts the 273-pin PGA package of the Pentium 60 and Pentium 66 processors.
2. Socket 5: Mounts the 320-pin staggered pin grid array (SPGA) of earlier 3v Pentium processors.
3. Socket 7: A socket type still in use that mounts the 321-pin SPGA of the later release Pentium processors and chips of AMD, Cyrix, and IDT.
4. Super 7 Sockets: An extension of the Socket 7 design used for the AMD K6 processors.
5. Socket 8: A 386-pn SPGA ZIF-socket for the Pentium Pro processor.
6. Socket 370: Designed for the Celeron processor in a plastic pin grid array (PPGA) packaging. Its name comes from the number of pins it supports.
Some common slot types:
1. Slot 1: Technically called the SC-242 (Slot Connector ? 242 pins) connector. It is a proprietary Intel connector used for Celeron, Pentium II, and Pentium III processors.
2. Slot 2: technically called the SC-330 connector, the Slot 2 connector is an Intel mounting for it's Pentium II Xeon and Pentium III Xeon chips. This slot style enhances the ability of multiple processors installed in the same computer to work together.
3. Slot A: AMD Athlon processors use this slot style, which is physically the same as a Slot 1 connector. However, it uses different pin assignments, making it unusable by Intel processors.
4. Slot M: Designed to hold the 64-bit Intel Itanium processor.
About MMX
MMX is short for multimedia extensions technology. Features for this technology are:
1. 57 new instructions to improve video, audio, and graphics capabilities.
2. SIMD (Single Instruction Multiple Data) technology, in which one instruction can control several data items.
3. Cache doubled to 32k.
I hope you find this article informative. Feel free to leave comments!
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This article was imported from zZine. (original author: biggytek)
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