1.7 PROCESSORS

Question 1

WHAT IS A PROCESSOR?

Answer 1

A processor is made up of one or more CPUs.

Question 2

WHAT DO CPUs DO?

Answer 2

Carry out software instruction. Each CPU in a 1+ CPU device is referred to as a core.

Question 3

EXAMPLE OF MULTIPLE-CORE PROCESSOR?

Answer 3

A quad-core processor can do 4x more work than a single-core.

Question 4

WHAT IS PROCESSOR SPEED MEASURED IN?

Answer 4

Clock cycles per second.

Question 5

WHAT IS CLOCK CYCLES PER SECOND?

Answer 5

Number of times per second the processor carries out one or more instructions.

Question 6

WHAT ARE CLOCK CYCLES MEASURED IN?

Answer 6

Hertz - KILOHERTZ, MEGAHERTZ, GIGAHERTZ.

Question 7

WHAT IS A PROCESSOR CYCLE?

Answer 7

Process of fetching a program instruction from memory, decoding the action then executing it.