Microprocessor vs discrete FET clock speed
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05-02-2021 - |
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.
Solution
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.
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