Definition
Token (Computer Architecture)
In computer architecture, a token is one unit of work that moves through a hardware structure or processing pipeline.
More concretely, a token is a group of inputs processed together to produce a corresponding group of outputs.
For example, in a processor pipeline, one instruction can be viewed as one token moving through stages such as fetch, decode, and execute.
Relation to performance
Latency and throughput
The latency of a system is the time needed for one token to pass from start to end.
The throughput of a system is the number of tokens completed per unit time.
Parallelism often increases throughput by allowing several tokens to make progress at once.