A microprocessor (µP) or a Microprocessing Unit (MPU) is a device that implements the core elements of a computer system on a single integrated circuit, or as a few integrated circuits operating as a cohesive unit.
Modern microprocessors typically incorporate the functionality of a clock, central processing unit (CPU), arithmetic logic unit (ALU), floating point unit (FPU), control unit (CU), memory interfaces, interrupts, input/output interfaces, and cache. Specialized microprocessor may also serve as or include graphical processing units (GPUs), signal processing units (DSPs), memory, and various other peripherals.
History
- Main article: history of the microprocessor
Functionality
In the broadest sense, the basic functionality of a microprocessor is to continuously read in digital data consisting of instructions and possibly values; execute them by interpreting the instructions and performing a certain operation on the values; and finally outputs a result.
While the basic functionality is shared among all microprocessors, they vary greatly in the type and size of data they handle, the kind of operations they support, how they perform those operations, their intended purpose, and their performance characteristics.
Classification
Most microprocessors can be classified as one of the follow:
- general-purpose microprocessors - the most common form of microprocessors, not designed for any one specific task in mind. Instead they are designed to support a broad array of operations.
- bit-slice microprocessor (BSM) - a microprocessor designed as a module intended to be built up like Lego blocks into a desired word size and architecture as needed.
- system on chip (SoC) - a microprocessor that contains all the components of a computer system, including the extra functionality that would normally be provided by auxiliary chips, which could include things such as wireless, ethernet, SD card, ADC, DAC, LCD drivers, and FPGA. SoCs are capable of running full-fledged modern operating systems with all their features.
- microcontroller (MCU) - a microprocessor that contains a few additional components such as RAM, ROM, and programmable I/O ports primarily designed to control and drive other electronic equipment. MCUs are designed to be embedded, usually in a highly restrictive environment. They usually consume very little power, may run relatively slow, and typically execute individual task-specific programs.
- floating point unit (FPU) - is a math microprocessor (or coprocesor) - a microprocessor that specializes in the creation and manipulation of floating point values.
- graphics processing unit (GPU) - is a graphic microprocessor - a microprocessor that specializes in the creation and manipulation of images through a set of optimized geometric operations. Modern graphic microprocessors tend to be highly parallelized, allowing large blocks of visual data to be processed efficiently.
- digital signal processor (DSP) - a microprocessor that specializes in the numerical manipulation of signals.
- coprocesor - a microprocessor that aides a master microprocessor by either offloading some of its work or by providing additional specialized processing operations, e.g. cryptography, math, graphics, string processing, or I/O interfacing. A coprocessor can act as an extension of the master microprocessor by extending the instruction set architecture or by acting like another peripheral on the main bus.
Some microprocessors can be a hybrid combinations of a few of the above. For example, a general-purpose microprocessor might come with an integrated GPU, implying an additional graphic processing unit has been added to the microprocessor to enable it to manipulate visual data more efficiently. Likewise almost all modern desktop microprocessors come with integrated floating point units.
Specifications
- Main articles: central processing unit, architecture, microarchitecture, and instruction set architecture
The technical specifications of microprocessors are derived from the microarchitecture of the incorporated CPU, the semicondcutor technology involved, and the properties of the overall system. Some common specifications are summarized below:
- technology - the semiconductor technology used to create the MPU (e.g. CMOS, BiCMOS, and TTL)
- process - the process used to manufacture the MPU - i.e the feature size and design rules. The feature size on its own (e.g. 10 µm) is usually taken as a synonym for the process.
- microarchitecture - the functional description of the underlying circuitry of the microprocessor.
- word size - the word size of a microprocessor usually refers specifically to the data word size used - i.e. highest operand width used to manipulate standard integer values. (this excludes special processing units such as SIMD and FPU)
- endianness - the order of the bytes the microprocessor uses when operating on multi-byte values.
- base frequency - the internal operating frequency of CPU's core. It's one of many parameters that are used to assess the performance of a microprocessor.
- package - also called a socket, it is the physical casing of the microprocessor.
Components
Parallelization
- Main article: parallelization
Instruction-level parallelism
- Main article: instruction-level parallelism
Control parallelism
- Main article: control parallelism
Multiple cores
- Main article: multi-core microprocessor
Design
- Main articles: integrated circuit and integrated circuit design
Computational power
Families
- Main article: microprocessor family
Programmability
See also
References
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