C/G/T processing units
In this section we discuss CPUs, GPUs, and TPUs. Before discussing TPUs, it will be useful for us to review CPUs and GPUs.
CPUs and GPUs
You are probably somewhat familiar with the concept of a CPU, a general-purpose chip sitting in each computer, tablet, and smartphone. CPUs are in charge of all of the computations: from logical controls, to arithmetic, to register operations, to operations with memory, and much more. CPUs are subject to the well-known Moore's law [1], which states that the number of transistors in a dense integrated circuit doubles about every two years.
Many people believe that we are currently in an era where this trend cannot be sustained for long, and indeed it has already declined during the past few years. Therefore, we need some additional technology if we want to support the demand for faster and faster computation to process the ever-growing amount of data that is available out there.