4 ms·

It's the most intuitive explanation of the 2-3GHz limit that I know of: at those clockrates, the speed of light is about 1 m/s. Factor in the slower speed of el

It's the most intuitive explanation of the 2-3GHz limit that I know of: at those clockrates, the speed of light is about 1 m/s. Factor in the slower speed of electrical signaling in metals and semiconductors, and it is properly measured in cm/s.

yarg 6y ago
A minor quibble: your unit of time should be nanoseconds.
- nitrogen 6y ago
  That, or maybe clock ticks
  - garmaine 6y ago
    That's what I meant. Speed of light is 300,000,000 m/s. Divide by 3Ghz (3,000,000,000 clock/s) and you get 10 cm/clock. Wave propagation in an actual conductor is slower still. Edit window has elapsed though.
    - Piskvorrr 6y ago
      So, essentially, the physical die size and c impose a hard constraint on tick propagation? Whoa!
      - garmaine 6y ago
        Yup. Only way to go faster (single-core speed) is to shrink smaller, and reduce coordination between cores.