The procedure that transforms raw data into useful information is called processing.
To perform this transformation, the computer uses two components: the
processor and memory.
The processor is like the brain of the computer; it organizes and carries out instructions that come from either the user or the software.
In a personal computer; the processor usually consists of one or more specialized chips, called microprocessors, which are slivers of silicon or other material etched with many tiny electronic circuits.
To process data or complete an instruction from a user or a program, the computer passes electricity through the circuits.
Fig. 1: Computer's motherboard
As shown in
Fig. 1 , the microprocessor is plugged into the
computer’s motherboard.
The motherboard is a rigid rectangular card containing the circuitry that connects the processor to the other
hardware.
The motherboard is an example of a circuit board. In most personal computers, many internal devices—such as video cards, sound cards, disk controllers, and other devices—are housed on their own
smaller circuit boards, which attach to the motherboard.
In many newer computers, these devices are
built directly into the motherboard. Some newer microprocessors are large and complex enough to require
their own dedicated circuit boards, which plug into a special slot in the motherboard. You can think of the motherboard as the master circuit board in a computer.
Fig. 2: Pentium 4 microprocessor
A personal computer's processor is usually a single chip or a set of chips contained on a circuit board. In some powerful computers, the processor consists of many chips and the circuit boards on which they are mounted. In either case,
the term central processing unit (CPU ) refers to a computer’s processor (sec Fig. 2). People often refer to computer systems by the type of CPU they contain.
A "Pentium 4” system, for example, uses a Pentium 4 microprocessor as its CPU.
In the future, processors will have more cores that will be blistering fast and reduce power consumption.
Software programmers will have to create multi-threaded applications to utilize the multiple cores.
Computers with such processors will be faster for multimedia applications such as graphics software, audio
players and video players. There is also a possibility that optical computing will increase processor speeds
exponentially. All these signs point to a brighter future for processors, which will be to the benefit of
everyone.
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