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Usually, the frequency of a computer's CPU is expressed in GHz. But does this mean that the individual transistors etched on the chip also switch on and off billions of times per second? Or are the high frequencies of CPUs achieved thanks to some "group effect" ? (since there are billions of transistors in a CPU, they may not need to switch at gigahertz frequencies themselves).

Note: For sure, this kind of information can easily be found for "macroscopic" scale MOSFETs. But I am absolutely not sure that they can be compared at all to their nanometric counterpart.

Thanks

user126566
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Transistors can switch incredibly fast, yes billions of times per second.

The CPU speed is the rate at which the clock path, which interacts with transistors in clocking elements like flip-flops and latches, oscillates between high and low. And transistors must be able to respond to the clock appropriately!

I'm sure if you look hard enough on google you might be able to find information about the rise/fall and delay times of fets from various technology nodes from various fabs/foundries. I hope you aren't too surprised if the units for those delays and rise/fall times are in picoseconds!

scuba
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