First microchips-based central processing units consisted of multiple microchips for different CPU components. The drive for ever greater integration and mini aturization led towards single-chip CPUs, where all of the necessary CPU components were put onto a single microchip, called a microprocessor. The first single-chip CPU , or a microprocessor, was Intel 4004.
The advent of the microprocessor spawned the evolution of the microcomputers, the kind that would eventually become personal computers that we are familiar with today.