I realise (/think?) that CPUs essentially treat two different voltages as a 1 or 0, but what stops us from using 3 or more different voltages? Wouldn’t that exponentially increase the CPU’s throughput by allowing for decisions with greater than two outcomes to be calculated in one cycle? This would presumably mean that a LOT of stuff written for base 2 would need to be updated to base 3 (in this example), but I can’t imagine that’s the only reason we haven’t done this.
I feel like I’ve explained that poorly, but hopefully you get the gist.
In: 12
Here are some more reasons not to use intermediate voltages:
A transistor is more power efficient when it is fully on, or fully off.
* When off the transistor has a high resistance but almost 0 current runs through it, which effectly means the transistor is not heating up, and almost no power consumed.
* When on the transistor has an almost zero resistance and large current, A low resistance also means the transitor is hardly heating up, and almost no power consumed..
* But when a transitor is half-on, there is a current and a resistance and the transitor is heating up and power is consumed.
The settling time for the voltage to get to a certain level is non-linear, meaning that the start and end is slow, having multiple voltages means that clock speed needs to slow to wait for the electronics to produce a stable voltage.
Sometimes the calculations can be done quicker with more intermediate voltages, but with just two voltages we could create more of the smaller electronics in the same space, because of lower heat and power usage and run it at a faster clock speed.
Latest Answers