The CPU heartbeat

These days, CPUs run on 2 to 4 GHz frequency processors. It means that a processor gets 2 to 4 times 109 clock signals to do something every second. A processor cannot perform any atomic operation faster than this, and also there is no reason to create a clock that is faster than what a processor can follow. It means that a CPU performs a simple operation, such as incrementing a register, in half or quarter of a nanosecond. This is the heartbeat of the processor, and if we think of the bureaucrat as humans, and who they are, then it is equivalent to one second, approximately, as their heartbeat. In our imagination, this slows down the operation of the computer to an understandable speed.

Processors have registers and caches ...

Get Java Projects - Second Edition now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.