An Arithmetic Logic Unit, or
ALU, is an
electronic component found in
CPUs and elsewhere, which performs various
logical and
arithmetic operations on the data given to it as
input (See also
accumulator), with the exact operation depending upon the
commands it is given (See also
opcode,
machine language,
assembly language).
These commands might include such things as:
And likely include many other variations on the above. See also RISC, CISC.
In processors that handle floating point, the floating point operations are usually taken care of in a separate floating point unit, while the ALU takes care of integer operations.