The main components of the CPU are– control unit (CU), arithmetic nd logical unit (ALU) and a set of registers.
- Control Unit :
- Responsible for controlling the movement of data and instructions in and out of the memory and the CPU.
- Decodes the fetched instruction and initiates the desired operation to be performed by the ALU.
- Arithmetic and logical unit (ALU) :
- Receives signal from CU and accordingly performs the desired operations on data.
- Registers :
- Size of CPU depends on the power of CPU.
- Are of two types : General purpose and Special purpose registers (Program counter, Instruction register, Memory address register (MAR), Memory data register (MDR), Accumulator (ACC)).
CPU also contains a clock to accurately control the speed and operations of the computer in general, and of the CPU in particular.