What is Control Unit in Computer?

A control unit or CU is an integrated circuitry present in the computer’s CPU that administrates the basic input and output functions of the processor. It follows a basic working algorithm, by taking command from the program and forwarding it directly to the arithmetic logic unit (ALU), Memory, Input, and Output devices. 

The CU or control unit of the computer’s CPU gives basic commands to different components of the computer about how to respond to those instructions and the execution time of the command. 

The CU of the computer work at a standard clock rate or clock frequency of the related CPU and the type of processor in it. Thus, the CU of a 2.5 to 3 GHz processor can easily bear a cycle of 3-billion operations in a single second. 

Almost all types of components and programs in a computer are administered by the Control unit only. 

Ever since the control unit (CU) was introduced in the computer CPUs nothing has changed in it, neither its primary functions nor its operation pattern.  

The standard procedure behind the working of a CU is accepting signal modified input data which are later forwarded to the CPU’s processor.

Then, the workload is shifted to the processor of the computer, which gives instructions to connected external peripherals and hardware units about how to fulfill and respond to the given command. 

There is a very important role of the architecture of the processor in this process, as the whole process and workload are shifted to the processor in the very next step, where the work of a CU is CPU dependant and because of the difference in fabrication and architecture, there is a difference in process execution in two differently fabricated CPUs. 

The Arithmetic logic unit does the work of calculating and managing the computation process and forwarding the resultant values straight to the CU again, and the CU then gives those commands to the related program or application in the form of output.

A control unit (CU) has basic types of semiconducting bodies called the logic gates which include 2 standard parts in it, a Program Counter (PC) and an instruction register (IR)

The application base boots only a single command at a time directly from memory (RAM) and saves it to the main storage just after the execution of the task. The administrating directory decrypts the given commands and modifies them into the instruction for the processor itself. 

Just behind the task, the control unit increases the application base and starts captivating the next command and this processor keeps going on like this.  

Computerbin
As the founder and owner of this website, I am an enthusiastic computer software and hardware enthusiast who takes pleasure in troubleshooting and solving computer-related problems. With MTech & BTech degrees in Computer Science & Engineering under my belt, I have worked in this field for over 12 years now. Through my career I have acquired a vast amount of knowledge regarding various computer topics such as software, hardware, and programming - knowledge which I love sharing with others to help people gain more insight into this exciting world of computers!