Eli5 Why does heat slow down electronics?
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If it does depend on the electronics. CMOS transistors do get a bit slower because of how electrons move in the warmer material. Bipolar on the other hand gets faster. For most other components there is a not significant change. Resistance in wires does increase with temperature and it can have an effect. But this is not something that has a practical effect for almost all consumer products, you need to do extreme CPU overclocking for it to start to be relevant.
The main reason that computers and phones have reduced performance when warm is that the speed is intentionally reduced. It is not because they can’t operate as fast it is to stop them from getting too warm and avoid physical damage.
So the clock speed is reduced so the temperature in the chip does not get to high.
The efficiency of a cooling system depends on the temperature difference between the hot and cold object. So the rate of heat leaving a phone or computer is reduced if the surrounding air is warmer. The rate of heat can be removed from the device is often a limiting factor for the performance of the system.
Compare that to if you do physical work a warm vs cool day. You will get too hot a lot faster a warm than a cool day.
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