12+ Unknown Facts about CPU | CPU in Detail

Hey guys,

here is the part 3 of basics.

Links to previous posts:

Part - 1

Part - 2

CPU: Central Processing Unit

It is the heart and brain of the computer. A centralized integrated circuit (IC) chip that performs all the arithmetic, logical and input/output operations. It is also referred to as the processor or the processor chip. It is the hardware component that executes instructions specified by software/programs.

CPU chip

Facts about CPU: 

• These days we find Dual core, core 2 duo, Quad core or Octa core processor installed on various systems. They contain two (dual core) or more (quad=4, octa=8) central processing units on a single chip! And it is obvious that greater the no. of CPU units, greater is the performance. i.e. An octa core processor is much faster than a dual core one.
• The design of modern CPU is based on Von Neumann and Harvard architectures.
• ALU (Arithmetic and Logic Unit), Control Unit (CU) and Memory Unit (MU) are major components of CPU.
• The modern CPU's come in 32 or 64 or 84-bit versions. This means that the processor is capable of transferring/manipulating/working with 32 or 64 or 84 bits of data simultaneously.
• A bus is a copper wire that carries bits from one component of the Sytem to the other.
• ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator) discovered by  J.Presper Eckert and John Mauchly, was the first electronic computer. It is also called "Fixed program computer" because you have to physically rewire the computer if you want it to do different tasks.
• Jack Kilby, an American electrical engineer, is considered as the father of processors. He is also a co-founder of handheld calculator and thermal printer.
• A four-time winner, Tianhe-2, a supercomputer developed by China's National University of Defense Technology, once more took home the title as the world's fastest computer, with a performance of 33.86 petaflops (quadrillions of calculations per second)
• In 2014, the super computer, Tianhe-2, of China's National Universe of Defense Technology, won the title of world's fastest computer for the fourth time! It can process 33.86 peta flops (quadrillions of calculations) per second! A quadrillion is 1,000,000,000,000,000 (10 power 15) only! ✌
• The CPU chip is usually made up of silicon because silicon is a cheap semi conductor that is easy to use and is highly pure. It can act both as an insulator (doesn't allow electricity to pass) and as a semi-conductor(allows little flow of electricity) as well.
• Silicon is abundant on earth. After oxygen, silicon is most widely used.
• Silicon's electrical properties can be manipulated by a process called doping.
• But silicon is not the fastest semi conductor. So in some high speed processors, crystals of arsenic and gallium are used.
• Intel 4004 (1971), a 4-bit CPU, was the first commercially available CPU from Intel.