What is microarchitecture?(What is, Concept and Definition)

A microarchitecture is a hardware implementation of an ISA (instruction set architecture).An ISA is a command and operations structure used by software to communicate with hardware.A microarchitecture is the hardware circuit that implements a particular ISA.


For example, x86-64 is the ISA used by most modern laptops and desktops.It is implemented by various microarchitectures, including those designed by Intel and AMD.The software that is compiled for the x86-64 ISA it can run on any microarchitecture designed to use the x86-64 instruction set.


Multiple CPU models can be designed for a particular microarchitecture.For this reason, a microarchitecture is sometimes called a "family" or "generation" of CPUs.For example, Intel Kaby Lake (7th generation) and Coffee Lake (8th generation) are separate microarchitectures, each with its own "family" of compatible CPUs.


The word "microarchitecture" is sometimes abbreviated µarch .The Greek letter µ ("mu") is the scientific abbreviation for "micro".Because this letter does not appear on some keyboards, you can also use the abbreviation uarch .

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