https://sankethbk.github.io/blog/tags/pipelining/Recent content in Pipelining on Sanketh's BlogHugo -- 0.166.0en-usWed, 19 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://sankethbk.github.io/blog/posts/cpu/2026-08-19-cpu-pipelining/Wed, 19 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://sankethbk.github.io/blog/posts/cpu/2026-08-19-cpu-pipelining/<h1 id="pipelining--first-principles">Pipelining — First Principles</h1> <h2 id="what-is-pipelining">What is pipelining?</h2> <p><strong>Pipelining is the technique of overlapping the execution of multiple instructions.</strong></p> <p>An instruction consists of multiple pieces of work. Instead of completing one instruction entirely before starting the next, we divide the work into <strong>stages</strong> and let different instructions occupy different stages simultaneously.</p> <p>For a simple example:</p> <div class="highlight"><pre tabindex="0" style="color:#f8f8f2;background-color:#272822;-moz-tab-size:4;-o-tab-size:4;tab-size:4;-webkit-text-size-adjust:none;"><code class="language-text" data-lang="text"><span style="display:flex;"><span> IF ID EX MEM WB </span></span><span style="display:flex;"><span> </span></span><span style="display:flex;"><span>Instruction 1 → → → → → </span></span><span style="display:flex;"><span>Instruction 2 → → → → </span></span><span style="display:flex;"><span>Instruction 3 → → → </span></span><span style="display:flex;"><span>Instruction 4 → → </span></span></code></pre></div><p>At any moment, several instructions are being worked on, but each is at a different stage.</p>