A specialized microprocessor that works alongside the primary central processing unit to accelerate specific operations. Instead of handling general system instructions, this chip takes over heavy workloads like floating-point arithmetic, cryptography, or signal processing. Offloading these tasks prevents the main processor from stalling on complex calculations and speeds up overall system execution.
We need to route the sensor data directly to the math coprocessor so the main CPU doesn't get bogged down with the matrix transforms.
Historic systems used physical, discrete chips for math coprocessors, whereas high-performance architectures typically integrate these specialized cores directly onto the main CPU die.
Related terms
Central processing unit
The primary silicon processor responsible for fetching, decoding, and executing instructions in a computer system.
FPU
A floating-point unit is a specialized coprocessor designed to perform rapid math on non-integer numbers.
Graphics processing unit
A specialized processor designed to rapidly manipulate memory to accelerate image creation.
Microprocessor
An integrated circuit that contains all the functions of a central processing unit.