RE: filmscanners: That's some overclocking

[Mike Duncan <mgduncan@esper.com>]

>I think something is a little overclocked. <BG>  The speed of
>light is 2.99 times 10E10  (that is 3 followed by 10 zeros) cm
>per second.  One of the outcomes of Einstein's theory of
>relativity is nothing can travel faster then the speed of light.
>
>I don't know the size of the actual chip, but if the chip was 1
>cm long and presumably an electrical signal would have to travel
>the length of the chip sometime, then in a single cycle that fast
>electron would travel 1 cm.  That would be an average speed of 7
>times E10 cm per second or more then twice the speed of light.
>Note I said average speed.  Since the electron must start and
>stop the actual top speed would need to be even faster.
>
>In fairness I beleive chips are  smaller then 1 cm (but larger
>then 0.1 cm), so my little argement is not valid; however, today
>distances and the time to travel those distances are a
>significant part of the limitation for chips.  So I feel with
>some confidence the 70 gHZ number is not possible.  I would
>personally be amazed at a number of 7 gHZ with the currently
>available chip manufacturing processes -- using Xrays to layout
>the grid might make  that possible.

You are correct, propagations are one limit to clock rates.  Some CPU's
actually divide the clock frequency to lower rates internally.

Mike Duncan