Lukas' Notes

computer-architecture

Definition

Address Compute Unit

An address compute unit (ACU) is a functional unit that calculates effective memory addresses for load and store instructions. It takes a base register value and an immediate offset (or a second register in indexed addressing) and produces a virtual address.

The ACU is part of the load-store unit, typically placed early in the memory pipeline so that cache access can begin before the full instruction completes.