A dedicated set of electrical pathways on a motherboard or inside an integrated circuit that carries command and status signals. Unlike data or address lines, these lines dictate what operations are happening, such as read/write commands, interrupt requests, or clock signals. It coordinates the timing and direction of data flow across the entire system.
Heard on the job
The CPU is trying to write to memory, but the control bus is holding the write-enable line low.
Related terms
Address bus
A set of wires used by a processor to specify the physical location of data in memory.
System bus
A shared communication pathway that links the CPU, memory, and peripherals in a computer.
CPU
The central processing unit is the primary logic chip that executes instructions and coordinates system operations.