Microprocessor chips, central processing unit, CPU’s share common names and are composed of a type of material (silicon mostly) that holds thousands of transistors. The transistors as mentioned above, can act as switches and create Boolean gates. Boolean gates, at a very basic level, allow mechanisms (like computers) to map activities in bits and bytes. The gates allow coding of binary numbers so servers, laptops and desktop machines can understand user actions. These actions include games, word processing, email and a vast variety of other actions. Microprocessors can basically preform 3 functions. These include moving data from one memory location to another, make decisions, and jump to a new set of instructions based on these decisions, as well as preform mathematical operations like addition or multiplication.
CPU’s were created in the 1970’s when computers were gaining popularity and power. The first CPU only carried 4 bits at the time. Over there decades the bits grew from 4, 8, and 32. Currently the highest bit is 64. As the amount of bits increased the size of the processors decreased. Components that compromise microprocessors are the number of transistors, the width of microns, clock speed, data width, and MIPS. Microns are microscopic. For example, a human hair is 100 microns thick. Clock speed relates to the maximum rate that a chip can be clocked at. Data width is the width at which a processor can figure out ALU. ALU stands for Arithmetic/Log Units, which allows for a processor to understand mathematical operations. MPIs stands for millions of instructions per second, and is an estimation of how a CPU can perform. Because CPUs can now do some many things, MIPs have lost standing in the technological community.
