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micro-op

A small, simple internal operation the processor breaks an instruction into; an x86-64 instruction such as add [rdi], eax becomes a load, an add and a store.

A micro-op is the unit of work the back end renames, schedules and retires; x86-64 decoders translate most instructions to one or a few micro-ops (complex ones come from microcode), and ARM64 cores also crack some instructions.

See also

macro-fusion micro-op cache retirement back end
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