What Happens Inside a CPU in One Second

#CPU #Processor #HowComputersWork
How does a CPU work? We go inside a desktop processor and spend one second at its pace: from a simple switch to arithmetic, memory and programs, then the clock, cores and cache that keep it working.

We build an adding machine out of marbles, turn switches into numbers, and explore what gigahertz, cores and cache mean. Memory and storage waits become enormous on the slowed clock. Branch prediction lets the processor guess what comes next and do useful work during part of a wait; a wrong guess sends it back. We also explain why that trick mattered to the Spectre security discovery.


CHAPTERS
00:00 Four small steps
01:13 Everything is a number
02:21 Building a marble adder
04:26 Memory, a clock and a program
05:59 One second at the CPU's pace
08:07 Why a CPU guesses
10:07 Fifty years of the same idea
11:37 Credits