Starting with the advent of the Pentium® Pro processor, IA32 processors no longer execute the complex, multi-byte, IA32 instruction set. Rather, the front end logic within the processor decodes each IA32 instruction into a series of one or more fixed-length, primitive instructions referred to as μops (micro-ops). The resulting μops are the instructions executed by the processor core.
The Pentium® Pro processor also introduced the FSB that is utilized on subsequent IA32 processors up to and including the Pentium® 4 and Pentium® M processor families.
Figure 23-1 on page 545 illustrates the basic elements that comprise a P6 family processor.
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