slow processors

[dejitaru]

What data is sent to each of the pins, and what comes out? Could some of this be emulated, predicted, or preprocessed? (L0 cache)
Exactly how each processor does its job is a closely guarded secret.
Why don't they just make a new chip from scratch?

They're adding more transistors to the chips, but shouldn't that make them slower? Why add so many anyway? Couldn't you use fewer faster transistors?

Why, physically, are processors lagging? And why can overclocking cause data corruption? What is the purpose of a clock speed?
Why aren't there any "open source" processors?
Could I get a full schematic for any processor?

 

[CTho9305]

Originally posted by: dejitaru
What data is sent to each of the pins, and what comes out? Could some of this be emulated, predicted, or preprocessed? (L0 cache)
Exactly how each processor does its job is a closely guarded secret.
Why don't they just make a new chip from scratch?

They're adding more transistors to the chips, but shouldn't that make them slower? Why add so many anyway? Couldn't you use fewer faster transistors?

Why, physically, are processors lagging? And why can overclocking cause data corruption? What is the purpose of a clock speed?
Why aren't there any "open source" processors?
Could I get a full schematic for any processor?

No offense, but based on your questions, I don't think you'd gain much understanding from a complete processor description/design. Anyway, here you can get "open source" processors.

What do you mean about processors lagging? They are CONSTANTLY getting faster.

Overclocking causes data corruption because a processor can only go so fast to finish an operation in time. Lets say you're overclocking a 900mhz chip to 1.1 ghz. Maybe the adder can only add in 1/1000th of a second. This means the addition won't be done before the result gets stored, so you will have corrupted data. If your program says "write a number to the hard drive at five bytes from the current position", and the add isn't done, you just overwrote the wrong data.

They use the absolute fastest transistors that can be reliably produced. Using more transistors lets you do more things at once. An old processor would do one instruction at a time. New processors do something like 3 or more in parallel. They also guess if something is going to happen or not. Predicting to >90% accuracy takes transistors.

You can't predict the data on the pins any faster than the chip runs, because it IS the fastest available way to get the data on the pins.