superscalar

Superscalar describes a microprocessor design that makes it possible for more than one instruction at a time to be executed during a single clock cycle . In a superscalar design, the processor or the instruction compiler is able to determine whether an instruction can be carried out independently of other sequential instructions, or whether it has a dependency on another instruction and must be executed in sequence with it. The processor then uses multiple execution units to simultaneously carry out two or more independent instructions at a time. Superscalar design is sometimes called "second generation RISC ."