A microprocessor processes data. It contains number of transistors that are put in a circuit to form various computational blocks like ALU ( Ar thematic and Logical unit), Multiplexers and various other digital circuits. It also contains various types of registers to store data.
Processing of instructions in a microprocessor
A microprocessor processes instructions. instructions are lines of programs. An instruction is processed in three steps.
1. Fetch - The instruction is first fetched from the memory ( i.e., from RAM. data from hard disc is first fetched into RAM. From RAM it is given to the processor)
2. Decode - The instructions will be in high level language. this should be decoded into machine language to make the processor understand the instructions.
3. Execute - The decoded instruction is then executed in the processor and then the outputs are generated. the generated outputs are then given to the outputs units like monitor, speakers or printers through i/o ports (i/o port is an input output port through which the system will take the inputs or generate the outputs).
Clock of a Microprocessor
In a Microprocessor for each clock cycle an instruction will be executed. All the components of a processor will be synchronized by the clock.
The clock of a microprocessor is the one which judges how fast a processor can work. It is the measure of the speed of a microprocessor. The higher the speed the better is the performance.
clock is measured in GHz. GHz stands for Giga Hertz.
For example: if we consider the clock of i7-960 it is 3.20 GHz.
- Which means 3.20 X 1,000,000,000 = 3,200,000,000 Hertz.
- This means that it can execute these many instructions per second.
- If the clock of a processor is higher then the number of instructions it can execute will be more and therefore the performance of a system will be more.
