There was a time when owning a computer meant you probably knew most or all of the instructions it could execute. Your modern PC, though, has a lot of instructions, many of them meant for specialized ...

Cache prefetching is what allows processors to have data and/or instructions ready for use in a fast local cache rather than having to wait for a fetch request to trickle through to system RAM and ...

I've been writing on CPU technology here at Ars for almost five years now, and during that time I've done my best to communicate computing concepts in as plain and accessible a manner as possible ...

Forty years ago today, electronics and semiconductor trade newspaper Electronic News ran an advertisement for a new kind of chip. The Intel 4004, a $60 chip in a 16-pin dual in-line package, was an ...

Santa Clara, Calif., October 16, 2002 – Tensilica, Inc., the leader in configurable and extensible processors, announced that Bill Huffman, Tensilica’s Chief Architect, will preview the ...

SAN MATEO, Calif. — MIPS Technologies Inc. has entered the race to deliver microprocessor cores that accept custom-made instructions, saying the move gives designers an alternative to hardwired logic ...

This paper presents an instruction set simulator of a 32-bit CPU and explains its use in embedded software development. Interaction of the ISS with transaction level model of a complex peripheral ...

You've probably heard the acronym CPU lots of times when you went out hunting for a laptop or desktop computer to buy. Quite often, the type of CPU in the device will be mentioned as part of the specs ...

Here’s a peek at the events and technologies that led to the development of Intel’s x86 architecture, plus milestones in its 30-year reign. 1947: The transistor is invented at Bell Labs. 1965: Gordon ...