We start out doing things in the CPU, create dedicated hardware for it externally, then slowly but surely bring it closer and closer to the CPU until we end up integrating the specialist capabilities into it. Often these capabilities enable other workloads to be done in the CPU, that we then build dedicated hardware for and the cycle continues.
An easy example is the 8087 maths coprocessor, from the early 80s. They were floating point accelerators, a separate chip you could plug into your motherboard, until eventually it was integrated into the CPU (386 and 486 processors had SX and DX variants, DX had the coprocessor integrated)
We start out doing things in the CPU, create dedicated hardware for it externally, then slowly but surely bring it closer and closer to the CPU until we end up integrating the specialist capabilities into it. Often these capabilities enable other workloads to be done in the CPU, that we then build dedicated hardware for and the cycle continues.
An easy example is the 8087 maths coprocessor, from the early 80s. They were floating point accelerators, a separate chip you could plug into your motherboard, until eventually it was integrated into the CPU (386 and 486 processors had SX and DX variants, DX had the coprocessor integrated)