Since we are now familiar with who manufactures what product, let's start with what each component basically does. Again, many of you might know most of this already. I'll keep it short.
First, the CPU: the Central Processing Unit, also known as the brain of the computer or the microprocessor is actually the smallest stand-alone component of a computer system.
It is a small square shaped integrated circuit (IC) that is fabricated on a semiconductor chip and contains millions of nano transistors.
The processor is also the most expensive, the most hardworking and the longer living component of the computer. It has more than 750 contacts that connect it to the motherboard.
Before the components of a cpu start their work, the processor is also responsible for fetching the input data and sending the output data to the user and/or memory.
The CPU can be divided into six internal components:
- Control Unit: receives the input data and decides where to send the processed information
- Instruction Cache: where the control unit's instructions are stored.
- Pre-Fetch unit: the input data is fetched from the memory, and stored here before being processed.
- Decode Unit: translate the input instruction into binary code, which is then sent on to the ALU.
- Arithmetic Logic Unit (ALU): performs the action that was decoded by the decode unit.
- Cache: The CPU usually has an internal general purpose cache memory, used to speed up computations by storing the most frequently used instructions here.
The processor is an engineering marvel in terms of its functions, performance and many more, performing hundreds of calculations in less than a second.
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