Scalar processor

As a scalar is called an architecture class of microprocessors. A scalar processor processes an information (eg, an integer, a floating point number or opcode) per system clock.

This is usually made ​​possible by a pipeline architecture. Scalar processor architectures are superior to classical, which run the commands sequentially. For scalar processor architectures simple instruction sets are sufficiently necessary, such as RISC, wherein the instructions, apart from a few exceptions, must be processed within one clock cycle (as opposed to CISC instruction sets whose commands have different execution times ).

Is an architecture able to finish more than one instruction per clock, they are called superscalar.