👉 Computing cycles, often referred to as cycles or clock cycles, represent the fundamental units of time measurement in computing, specifically in the context of instruction execution. Each cycle corresponds to a single operation or step in the execution of a program's instructions by a central processing unit (CPU). These cycles can be thought of as the smallest discrete unit of time that a computer can process, typically equating to one clock tick. The number of cycles required to execute a single instruction is known as the instruction cycle or clock cycle length. The total time for executing a program is determined by the number of cycles needed to process all instructions, influenced by factors like instruction complexity, pipeline depth, and parallelism. Understanding cycles is crucial for optimizing performance, as reducing cycle count can lead to faster execution speeds and more efficient computing.
