Microprocessor vs discrete FET clock speed

Question

How do microprocessors achieve such high clock speeds when discrete FETs can only achieve approx 20MHz? Do they have a large number of parallel sequential logic systems?

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Single transistors can switch much faster than the clock of a microprocessor. One example: 45 GHz transistors by Infineon.

Usually there are somewhere around 15-25 transistors in series in the longest path of a modern CPU, so the clock speed is at least an order of magnitude less than the switching speed of the individual transistors.