A
central
processing unit
(CPU)
(formerly 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 arithmetical, 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 CPU; this is called multiprocessing.
All modern CPUs are microprocessors, meaning contained on a single
chip. Some integrated circuits (ICs) can contain multiple CPUs on a
single chip; those ICs are called multi-core processors. An IC
containing a CPU can also contain peripheral devices, and other
components of a computer system; this is called a system on a chip
(SoC).
Two
typical components of a CPU are the arithmetic logic unit (ALU),
which performs arithmetic and logical operations, and the control
unit (CU), which extracts instructions from memory and decodes and
executes them, calling on the ALU 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
distributed computing model, problems are solved by a distributed
interconnected set of processors.
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