Central Processing Unit

Also Known as CPU.

A central processing unit refers to part of a computer that interprets and carries out, or processes, instructions and data contained in the software. The more generic term processor can be used to refer to a CPU as well. Microprocessors are CPUs that are manufactured on integrated circuits, often as a single-chip package. Since the mid-1970s, these single-chip microprocessors have become the most common and prominent implementations of CPUs, and today the term is almost always applied to this form.

The term "Central processing unit" is, in general terms, a functional description of a certain class of programmable logic machines. This broad definition can easily be applied to many early computers that existed long before the term "CPU" ever came into widespread usage, yet the term and its acronym have been in use at least since the early 1960s.