Basic Terms used in Microprocessor

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Basic Terms used in Microprocessor

Here is a list of some basic terms used in microprocessor:

• Instruction Set - The group of commands that the microprocessor can understand is called Instruction set. It is an interface between hardware and software.
• Bus - Set of conductors intended to transmit data, address or control information to different elements in a microprocessor. A microprocessor will have three types of buses, i.e., data bus, address bus, and control bus.
• IPC (Instructions Per Cycle) - It is a measure of how many instructions a CPU is capable of executing in a single clock.
• Clock Speed - It is the number of operations per second the processor can perform. It can be expressed in megahertz (MHz) or gigahertz (GHz). It is also called the Clock Rate.
• Bandwidth - The number of bits processed in a single instruction is called Bandwidth.
• Word Length - The number of bits the processor can process at a time is called the word length of the processor. 8-bit Microprocessor may process 8 -bit data at a time. The range of word length is from 4 bits to 64 bits depending upon the type of the microcomputer.
• Data Types - The microprocessor supports multiple data type formats like binary, ASCII, signed and unsigned numbers.