Matt said:
Too bad things don't work that way. Let's say a processor today
runs at 4GHz and dissipates 130W. If the transistors inside it
were to suddenly run at 350GHz, the power the processor would
dissipate would be (350/4) * 130W = 11,375 watts. That doesn't
sound too practical.
The ability to make circuits that clock faster than the current
Intel and AMD offerings, has existed for some number of years.
(Maybe at least 15 years.)
For example, here is a paper from 1995 (20 years ago), where they
talk about serial to parallel shift registers running at 12GHz. The
Rockwell process they talk about, had an Ft of 100Ghz when I first
heard about it, which is a bit higher than that paper mentions.
http://www.ecse.rpi.edu/frisc/reports/spring95/s95.html
For the IBM development to be used outside of a few small
microwave ICs, the power dissipation would have to drop, and
that is more of a challenge than simply switching quickly.
You'll notice how hard Intel had to work, to drop their processor
power from 130W to 65W - it took years. Dropping from 11,375W
to 130W will be a lot tougher.
Paul
