implementing any known bus protocol processor 125 includes multiple processing elements such as processing elements 130 133 a processing element refers to a thread a process a context a logical processor a hardware thread a core and or any processing element which shares access to other shared resources of the processor such as reservation units execution units and higher level caches memory a processing element may also be referred to as a thread unit i e an element which is capable of having instruction independently scheduled for execution by a software thread a physical processor typically refers to an integrated circuit which potentially includes any number of other processing elements such as cores or hardware threads a core often refers to logic located on an integrated circuit capable of maintaining an independent architectural state wherein each independently maintained architectural state is associated with at least some dedicated execution resources in contrast to cores a hardware thread typically refers to any logic located on an integrated circuit capable of maintaining an independent architectural state wherein the independently maintained architectural states share access to execution resources as can be seen when certain processing resources are shared and others are dedicated to an architectural state the line between the nomenclature of a hardware thread and core overlaps yet often a core and a hardware thread are viewed by an operating system or management software as individual logical processors where the software is able to individually schedule operations on each logical processor in other words software views two cores or threads on a physical processor as two independent processors additionally each core potentially includes multiple hardware threads for executing multiple software threads therefore.