Chapter 2
X86 Processor Architecture
Microprocessors have evolved considerably over the past four decades, from the Intel 4-bit 4004 to the multi-core processors of today. A multi-core processor consists of two or more separate central processing units (CPUs), called cores. Thus, a quad-core processor consists of four independent CPUs. Multi-core processors can be designed to accommodate very-long-instruction-words (VLIWs), a pipelined reduced-instruction-set computer (RISC), or as a vector processor that operates on sets or vectors. Multi-core processors are designed to operate with multiple threads; that is, to execute multiple tasks simultaneously. Multithreading takes advantage of memory latency in order to improve system performance.
The ...
Get X86 Assembly Language and C Fundamentals 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.
