Microprocessor

  
 Microprocessor is an electronic component that is used by a computer to do its work. microprocessor is an integrated circuit that engineers imprint onto a small  Silicon Semiconductor Chip.

        It is a Central Processing Unit on a single integrated circuit chip containing millions of very small components including Transistors, Resistors, and Diodes that work together. Microprocessors help to do everything from writing to searching the Web. Everything a computer does is described by lots of precise instructions, and microprocessors carry out these instructions at incredible speed-many millions of times a second.

          Microprocessors are responsible for performing the majority of a computer's processing tasks, which include making calculations, managing data and following input instructions. With personal computers, the term "microprocessor" is synonymous with the term "central processing unit" or CPU.

Example :-  Microprocessor include 8085, 8086, Pentium, i3, i5 etc.

              

        Three basic characteristics differentiate Microprocessors :-

 Instruction Set :-  An Instruction Set or Command Set is the basic set of commands understood by the microprocessor. When compiled the High-Level instructions of the programming language are transformed into the Machine-Level commands for a specific microprocessor. Two important  factors in instruction set design are decoder simplicity and code density.

                    The decoder reads the next instruction from memory, and then routes the component pieces of that instruction appropriately. The design of the instruction set can dramatically affect the complexity and, therefore, the speed of decoding the instructions. Code density is the combined size of the instructions needed to perform a particular task. Higher density improves memory utilization.

Bandwidth :-  In order to carry out instructions, microprocessors transmit data in bits, or units of binary notation that appear as either ones or zeros. The maximum number of bits that a microprocessor can process while carrying out a single instruction is known as bandwidth. The higher a microprocessor's bandwidth, the more processing power a microprocessor has. For example, a microprocessor with a bandwidth of 32 bits is more powerful than a microprocessor with a bandwidth of 16 bits.

Clock-Speed :-   Alternatively referred to as Clock Rate and Processor Speed, Clock Speed is the speed that the microprocessor executes each instruction or each vibration of the clock. The CPU requires a fixed number of  cycles to execute each instruction. The faster the clocks rate, the faster the CPU, or the faster it can execute instructions. Clock Speeds are usually determined in MHz, 1 MHz representing 1 million cycles per second, or in GHz, 1 GHz representing 1 thousand million cycles per second. The higher the CPU speed the better a computer will perform in a general sense.

                              Other components can improve a computer's performance as well like memory (RAM) and the motherboard as well as the number of cores that a processor has like dual core or quad core.