Re:10GHz at under 1V by 2005 - The future of Intel’s manufac...
by kec on Wednesday February 08, 2017 @12:15PM
(#13599992)
And to get even more pedantic, it's even worse than that alone implies because switching power increases with the square of voltage.
We're also at the point where transistor leakage current matters. All transistors leak a tiny amount of current even without switching. Alone this might only be a few µA, but pack enough of them together on a die and that might add up to hundreds of mA. Combine that with higher voltages so the chip can run at high clock speeds, and the fact that leakage increases with temperature (which will be driven by higher voltages and frequencies), and all of a sudden you have a feedback loop which can cause you to burn a few extra Watts before you've even done anything.
We're also at the point where transistor leakage current matters. All transistors leak a tiny amount of current even without switching. Alone this might only be a few µA, but pack enough of them together on a die and that might add up to hundreds of mA. Combine that with higher voltages so the chip can run at high clock speeds, and the fact that leakage increases with temperature (which will be driven by higher voltages and frequencies), and all of a sudden you have a feedback loop which can cause you to burn a few extra Watts before you've even done anything.