How Does a Simple Processor Work?
Central Processing Unit (CPU), also known as a microprocessor or processor, is used to process data as the name suggests. The data it will process varies according to the program. This could be a game or a LibreOffice file. Whatever the program is, the CPU doesn’t care because it doesn’t see the data it processes as the end-user sees it. It only looks at what instructions the program has.
Here are the things happening when you click on an icon to run a program;
- The program located in the storage unit is loads into RAM. The program consists of instructions.
- The CPU pulls the program from RAM and loads it on itself using a circuit called a memory controller.
- The data is now inside the CPU and it starts to processing.
- What happens after this moment depends on the program itself. The processor either continues processing by looking at the given command or does something with the data it processes, such as printing its output to the screen.
In the past, the CPU itself was controlling the data transfer between storage and RAM. Since the storage units and RAM were slow, the CPU had to wait for a long time for the transfer to take place, hence the system was overall slowing down. The mentioned process is called Processor I/O, which disappeared with the advent of a system called Direct Access Memory (DMA). Data transfers would now be made over DMA, which would not occupy the…
