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What's with the heat?

S

swifty3

Banned
Just wondering from a scientific stand point, what the effect of heat is on a CPU, or more generally, it's effect on any type of electronics. I got the basic notion of high heat=high resistance, slower electrical movement. but how does heat impact the life of an electrical product?
Thanks!
 
Heat in electronics degrades components, specifically the p-n junctions of diodes and transistors. Each design is designed to withstand some tolerance on device parameters (ie, you can swap out blown transistors on amplifiers for new ones and it'll work again), but when tolerance levels rises above a certain temp, the p-n junction starts to misbehave and weird things can happen - this change in the p-n junction can be permanent depending on how hot the device gets.
 
Heat give atoms in a crystal more energy. this allows them to move around in their lattice and even jump to other places, creating defects. I believe heat also increases resistance, but I can't explain why. Heat also allows electrons in the valence band in semiconductors to jump to the conductance band, so over a certain temp, semiconductors basically turn into conductors. If I understood my prof correctly, a computer at very low temperatures would not work at all since it would be difficult to promote electrons to the conduction band. Maybe if you raised the voltage it would work though.
 
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