The basic workings of a CPU are fairly easy once truly looked at. The CPU is, when it comes down to it, the brain of the computer. It processes information which is stored as bytes of memory. That information can be one of 2 things, instructions or data. A piece of data to a computer is a binary representation of a number, letter, or even a color.

Some of the things an instruction to a CPU can be are move it, add or subtract

The three basic operations a CPU does with data are: read data, manipulate that data and writes that data to the memory for easy referral. When looking at a CPU for its most basic parts, you will find 3 tools which it uses for data processing. They are an instruction pointer, some registers and a ALU (arithmetic logic unit)

The instruction pointer's job is to tell the CPU where the instructions are located in the memory which need to be run.

A register is basically a temporary storage section on the CPU. It holds the data which is waiting to be processed by an instruction or even data that has been processed already. An example of this would be the sum of 2 numbers.

The ALU acts sort of like the logical mind of the computer as it is what actually solves all of the mathematical and logic related problems which are needed to be done per an instruction.

Futher, some additional needed tools are the instruction fetch which grabs instructions from the RAM or a section of memory on the CPU. From there, there is another tool which is called the instruction decoder which takes the instructions gotten from the fetch and decodes it to something that the CPU will understand and then determines what is needed next for the completion of that instruction. And finally you have the control unit which acts sort of like the office manager for the CPU as it co-ordinates all the chips actions. It's what tells the ALU what to calculate, gets the fetch to fetch a value, and then gets the decoder to translate that value into an instruction.

Now for a very simple example of how the CPU does its thing:

You are using the calculator program on your computer screen and you type in 5+3 and you press the enter key for the answer. Now it gives it so fast you don't realize what it actually just did. In that example, when you where typing the problem in, it was being sent to the memory as an instrution "5+3". From there the fetch is directed to that spot on the memory that holds that instrution. It then hands it over to the instrution decoder which examines "5+3" and figures out what is required to solve the problem. From there it would go to the ALU for solving coming out with "8" in computer language of course which would probably be 00001000. As that problem has been completely delt with, sends the result to your monitor as "8". Keep in mind this is a very simple example and actually any thing you do on your computer is broken down into logic and arithmatic problems.

To insure that these cycles are happening on time as with more complicated actions by the computer, the parts need a clock generator to go by. This thing puts all cycles on the same time line so every thing gets done at the right time. As like a metronome, the generater sends out pulses that set the pace for the CPU. These pulses are measured by millions of cycles per second, aka a Megahertz which shows the raw speed of a CPU. The more pulses, the more actions get done.