Positive resistance (like a resistor) not negative resistance (like constant power output active power supply) One way to look at it is the power in cmos gates

Positive resistance (like a resistor) not negative resistance (like constant power output active power supply) One way to look at it is the power in cmos gates is all burned up fighting capacitance. You can run a cmos ram in sleep mode for years off a watch battery, but they'll take "serious" power at MHz speeds. Think of charging a capacitor and watch the voltage across the cap as it charges. As electrons trickle in (thats the current) the voltage slowly rises. It'll take longer to charge that cap up to 5 volts than 3.3 volts. (edited to add, next step in analogy is you could make that cap charge up to 5 volts just as fast as it charged to 3.3. volts by cranking up the current...) So by analogy in your cmos gates the higher the voltage you charge a binary one up to, the larger the current spikes to get to that voltage representing a binary one. There are resistive losses, but not much. Those are positive resistances, too. So everything comes up positive resistance aka "higher voltage = higher current" not the other way around.