9. Control Unit

The picture below shows how the internals of a CPU can be represented in terms of purpose.

The Control Unit handles the flow of data and instructions. It includes all the inputs and outputs required of the CPU. It also sends commands to the ALU and directs operations on memory.

The Immediate Access Store is the internal memory of the cpu including its registers and caches.

The ALU calculates and compares. Backing store is external RAM and other storage media.

ALU within a CPU

A specific CPU will differ in detail. For example, you could explore the Intel microprocessors by having a look at their user manuals. The search term below should locate them for you.

Challenge see if you can find out one extra fact on this topic that we haven't already told you

Click on this link: Intel 64 and IA-32 architectures