How does the processor work? Principle of operation

Almost everyone knows that the main element among the "iron" components in the computer is the central processor. But the circle of people who imagine how the processor works is very limited. Most users have no idea about this. And even when the system suddenly starts to "brake", many believe that this processor does not work well, and does not attach importance to other factors. For a complete understanding of the situation, consider some aspects of the CPU.

What is the CPU?

The central processor (CPU or in the English version of the CPU) is the heart of any computer system. All computational operations are assigned to it, not only arithmetic or floating point calculations (changing mantissa), but also logical ones.

The processor itself is a small square plate (chip), inside which are millions of transistors. Sometimes this device is also called an integrated microcircuit.

What does the processor consist of?

If we talk about how the Intel processor or its competitor AMD works, we need to look at how these chips are arranged. The first microprocessor (by the way, it was from Intel, model 4040) appeared back in 1971. It could perform only the simplest operations of addition and subtraction with processing of only 4 bits of information, i.e., had a 4-bit architecture.

Modern processors, like the first-born, are based on transistors and have much faster performance. They are produced by the method of photolithography from a certain number of individual silicon plates, which form a single crystal, into which transistors are imprinted. The scheme is created on a special accelerator by accelerated boron ions. In the internal structure of processors, the main components are nuclei, buses and functional particles, called revisions.

Main characteristics

Like any other device, the processor is characterized by certain parameters, which can not be avoided by answering the question of how the processor works. First of all it is:

• Number of Cores;
• Number of threads;
• The size of the cache (internal memory);
• clock frequency;
• Tire speed.

For now, let's stop at the clock frequency. No wonder the processor is called the heart of the computer. Like the heart, it operates in a pulsation mode with a certain number of cycles per second. The clock frequency is measured in MHz or GHz. The higher it is, the more operations the device can perform.

At what frequency does the processor work, one can learn from its declared characteristics or look at the information in the system information. But in the process of processing commands, the frequency can vary, and when overclocking (overclocking), increase to extreme limits. Thus, the declared clock frequency is only averaged.

The number of cores is an indicator that determines the number of processor processing centers (not to be confused with threads-the number of cores and threads may not coincide). Due to this distribution, it becomes possible to redirect operations to other cores, thereby increasing overall performance.

How the processor works: processing commands

Now a little bit about the structure of executable commands. If you look at how the processor works, you need to clearly understand that any command has two components - operational and operand.

The operating part indicates what the computer system is supposed to perform at the moment, the operand determines what the processor should work on. In addition, the processor core can contain two computing centers (a container, a stream) that separate the execution of the command into several stages:

• Production;
• Decryption;
• Execution of the command;
• Access to the memory of the processor itself
• Saving the result.

Today, separate caching is used in the form of using two levels of cache memory, which avoids interception by two or more commands to access one of the memory blocks.

Processors by the type of processing commands are divided into linear (execution of commands in the order of their write queue), cyclic and branching (execution of instructions after processing branch conditions).

Performed operations

Among the main functions assigned to the processor, in the sense of executable commands or instructions, there are three main tasks:

• Mathematical actions on the basis of an arithmetic-logical device;
• Moving data (information) from one type of memory to another;
• Decision-making on the execution of the team, and on its basis - the choice of switching over to other sets of commands.

Interaction with memory (ROM and RAM)

In this process, it should be noted such components as the bus and the read and write channel, which are connected to the storage devices. The ROM contains a permanent set of bytes. First, the address bus requests a specific byte from the ROM, then transfers it to the data bus, after which the read channel changes its state and ROM provides the requested byte.

But processors can not only read data from RAM, but also record them. In this case, a recording channel is used. But, if you understand, by and large modern computers could theoretically do without RAM at all, as modern microcontrollers are able to place the necessary data bytes directly in the memory of the processor chip itself. But you can not do without ROM.

Among other things, the system starts from the hardware testing mode (BIOS command), and only then the control is transferred to the bootable operating system.

How can I check if the processor is working?

Now let's look at some aspects of the processor performance check. It should be clearly understood that if the processor did not work, the computer would not be able to start the download at all.

Another thing is when you need to look at the indicator of using the processor's capabilities at some point. You can do this from the standard "Task Manager" (opposite to any process, it indicates how much CPU utilization it gives). To visually determine this parameter, you can use the Performance tab, where the change tracking is in real time. Advanced parameters can be seen with the help of special programs, for example, CPU-Z.

In addition, you can use multiple processor cores, using the system configuration (msconfig) and additional boot parameters for this.

Possible problems

Finally, a few words about the problems. Here many users often ask, they say, why the processor is working, and the monitor does not turn on? This situation has nothing to do with the CPU. The fact is that when you turn on any computer, first you test the graphics adapter, and only then everything else. Perhaps the problem is just in the processor of the graphics chip (all modern video accelerators have their own graphics processors).

But on the example of the functioning of the human body, one must understand that in the event of a heart failure, the whole organism dies. So with computers. The processor does not work - the whole computer system "dies".