Why are the GHz speeds in computers the same after such a long period of time?
In: Engineering
In the past, when transistors got smaller, we could increase frequency and decrease voltage proportionally and have higher frequency at the same power (this is called Dennard scaling). However, we can’t lower the voltage any more (if we do, a different power component, leakage power, grows exponentially). If we increase the frequency without decreasing voltage, the power increases also, which means eventually the chip starts to melt. So we need to improve performance in other ways (e.g., by using those smaller transistors to make more cores running at the same speed). Look into ‘dark silicon’ for more info.
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