超纯量（superscalar）CPU架构是指在一颗处理器内核中实行了指令级并行的一类并行运算。这种技术能够在相同的CPU主频下实现更高的CPU吞吐率（throughput）。处理器的内核中一般有多个执行单元（或称功能单元），如算术逻辑单元、位移单元、乘法器等等。未实现超标量体系结构时，CPU在每个时钟周期仅执行单条指令，因此仅有一个执行单元在工作，其它执行单元空闲。超标量体系结构的CPU在一个时钟周期可以同时分派（dispatching）多条指令在不同的执行单元中被执行，这就实现了指令级的并行。超标量体系结构可以视作MIMD（多指令多数据）。

A superscalar processor is a CPU that implements a form of parallelism called instruction-level parallelism within a single processor. It therefore allows faster CPU throughput (the number of instructions that can be executed in a unit of time) than would otherwise be possible at a given clock rate. A superscalar processor executes more than one instruction during a clock cycle by simultaneously dispatching multiple instructions to different execution units on the processor. Each execution unit is not a separate processing unit (called "core") as in multi-core processors, but an execution resource within a single CPU such as an arithmetic logic unit, a bit shifter, or a multiplier.