The instruction cycle (also known as the fetch–decode–execute cycle, or simply the fetch-execute cycle) is the cycle that the central processing unit (CPU) follows from boot-up until the computer has shut down in order to process instructions. It is composed of three main stages: the fetch stage, the decode stage, and the execute stage. In simpler CPUs, the instruction cycle is executed sequentially, each instruction being processed before the next one is started. In most modern CPUs, the instruction cycles are instead executed concurrently, and often in parallel, through an instruction pipeline: the next instruction starts being processed before the previous instruction has finished, which is possible because the cycle is broken up into separate steps. The program counter (PC) is a special register that holds the memory address of the next instruction to be executed. During the fetch stage, the address stored in the PC is copied into the memory address register (MAR) and then the PC is incremented in order to "point" to the memory address of the next instruction to be executed. The CPU then takes the instruction at the memory address described by the MAR and copies it into the memory data register (MDR). The MDR also acts as a two-way register that holds data fetched from memory or data waiting to be stored in memory (it is also known as the memory buffer register (MBR) because of this). Eventually, the instruction in the MDR is copied into the current instruction register (CIR) which acts as a temporary holding ground for the instruction that has just been fetched from memory. During the decode stage, the control unit (CU) will decode the instruction in the CIR. The CU then sends signals to other components within the CPU, such as the arithmetic logic unit (ALU) and the floating point unit (FPU). The ALU performs arithmetic operations such as addition and subtraction and also multiplication via repeated addition and division via repeated subtraction. It also performs logic operations such as AND, OR, NOT, and binary shifts as well.

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Arithmetic logic unit
In computing, an arithmetic logic unit (ALU) is a combinational digital circuit that performs arithmetic and bitwise operations on integer binary numbers. This is in contrast to a floating-point unit (FPU), which operates on floating point numbers. It is a fundamental building block of many types of computing circuits, including the central processing unit (CPU) of computers, FPUs, and graphics processing units (GPUs).
Classic RISC pipeline
In the history of computer hardware, some early reduced instruction set computer central processing units (RISC CPUs) used a very similar architectural solution, now called a classic RISC pipeline. Those CPUs were: MIPS, SPARC, Motorola 88000, and later the notional CPU DLX invented for education. Each of these classic scalar RISC designs fetches and tries to execute one instruction per cycle. The main common concept of each design is a five-stage execution instruction pipeline.
Out-of-order execution
In computer engineering, out-of-order execution (or more formally dynamic execution) is a paradigm used in most high-performance central processing units to make use of instruction cycles that would otherwise be wasted. In this paradigm, a processor executes instructions in an order governed by the availability of input data and execution units, rather than by their original order in a program. In doing so, the processor can avoid being idle while waiting for the preceding instruction to complete and can, in the meantime, process the next instructions that are able to run immediately and independently.
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