Chip 101
Course map

Section 1 of 6Chips from zero

Lesson 4 of 36

  1. Chip, lesson 1
  2. Transistor, lesson 2
  3. Chipmaking, lesson 3
  4. CPU, lesson 4
  5. CPU inside, lesson 5
  6. GPU, lesson 6
  7. TPU and NPU, lesson 7

4 pictures About 3 minutes

What is a CPU?

Short answerA CPU is the part of a computer that follows a program's instructions, one tiny step at a time, billions of times every second.

  1. laptopCPU

    Picture 1 of 4

    A small chip inside every computer

    Open a laptop or a phone and you find a flat square chip, a few centimeters across. That chip is the CPU.

  2. 1. Take 22. Add 33. Show it5ProgramCPUResult

    Picture 2 of 4

    It follows a recipe, one step at a time

    A program is a list of tiny steps, called instructions, like a recipe. The CPU reads a step, does it, then reads the next one.

  3. 1 secondwork moves on every tick3 billion ticksevery second, at 3 GHz

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    Billions of steps every second

    A clock inside the chip ticks very fast, and the CPU's work moves forward on every tick. 3 GHz means 3 billion ticks a second.

  4. 1 core8 cores

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    Many cooks in one chip

    Today's CPUs hold several cores. Each core is a cook of its own, so eight cores can work on eight jobs at once.

Words to know

Program
A list of steps for a computer to follow.
Instruction
One tiny step in a program, such as “add these two numbers”.
Clock speed (GHz)
How many times a second the CPU's clock ticks. 1 GHz is one billion ticks a second.
Core
One complete worker inside a CPU. More cores can do more jobs at once.

Where you meet it at work

Chip teams decide how fast each core ticks and when it may rest. Faster ticks finish work sooner but use more power and make more heat, so the chip speeds up only when there is work to do.

Check yourself

A CPU runs at 4 GHz. About how many ticks is that each second?

Show the answerHide the answer

About 4 billion. Giga means billion.