Superscalar Processor

What Does Superscalar Processor Mean?

A superscalar processor is a specific type of microprocessor that uses instruction-level parallelism to help to facilitate more than one instruction executed during a clock cycle. This depends on analysis of the instructions to be carried out and the use of multiple execution units to triage these instructions.

Techopedia Explains Superscalar Processor

Along with developments like the superscalar design that use microprocessor innovation to speed up the implementation of multiple instructions, the microprocessor industry has also seen the emergence of multicore design, where builders simply incorporate more than one processor or core into a multicore CPU.

Superscalar is different, because the execution units are not separate processors. This leads to superscalar being described as “second-generation RISC” (reduced instruction set computing) – the idea behind RISC is that computers can operate quickly with a reduced instruction set.