>Yeah, because they didn't realize how terribly the power consumption / heat output would scale; a 10GHz CPU will just melt itself.
Tesla, it was claimed, discovered something called "cold electricity" -- that is (according to the claim) -- when you ran it through a circuit -- it cooled rather than heated the circuit!
Now, today we have something sort of like this as thermocouples/Peltier Junctions (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermoelectric_cooling for more/better info on this) -- although it is not known if Tesla's "cold electricity" -- was talking about this effect and/or related -- or not.
Nonetheless -- it seems to me that IF (and it's a big if!) -- IF Tesla's "Cold Electricity" existed, IF it could be rediscovered, and IF it could somehow be integrated on a CPU either as part of or as auxilliary to the main CPU circuitry -- then the CPU cooling problem could be solved(!) -- or at least mitigated somewhat, to the point of allowing/permitting CPU's with higher thermal envelopes/tolerances/CPU speeds...
Again, there are some seriously big IF's there -- but I think it would be a great place for someone to do more research, or for researchers that might have an interest in this area...
It seems to me that Intel and AMD (or heck, any chipmaker for that matter!) -- might (or should!) -- have an interest for more research in this area...
In thinking about it -- It seems to me that there might be a relationship between heat, resistance, and unbalanced capacitance in a circuit...
In other words, you have a wire.
You put amps (at a specific voltage) through this wire.
If the wire diameter can't handle those amps (at that voltage, remembering that the higher the voltage -- the more amps that a wire of a given diameter can carry, case in point, high-tension electric transmission wires -- they usually never melt despite carrying huge amounts of electricity, the reason being that that electricity is at high voltage)
If the wire diameter can't handle those amps at that voltage (the the lower the voltage, the more it will heat at a given amp load), then it gets hot.
It starts to act less like a conductor -- and more like a resistor...
But wait!
Haven't we also seen this effect with capacitors that are fully charged (well, minus the heating)?
No longer does current pass through them at full capacitance -- as full capacitance is approached, they start to act less and less like conductors, and more like resistors!
They also want to "push back"!
Well, maybe wires which are under electrical stress (heating up, gaining resistance) act sort of like "mini-capacitors"!
That is, their capacitance isn't that much -- but they want to "push back" against the circuit, if only for a microsecond -- to release their micro-capacitative electrical load!
But -- in many places in a CPU -- if a bit needs to stay set to '1' for example -- this cannot happen -- because electricity needs to pass through that circuit constantly!
Solution: First, figure out a way to store bits in capacitatively balanced circuits (an LC coil would be an example of this, but there should be other ways to do it), this allows the circuit to "relax" regularly every millisecond/microsecond/picosecond (relative to CPU speed / transistor switching speed).
Net result is that circuit should not get hot, ever...
Rule of thumb (for future CPU engineers): If you're storing bits in a circuit that gets, or can get hot over time -- you're doing it wrong... (even though humanity's CPU engineering history up until this point in time is that every CPU created thus far -- stores and manipulates bits in circuits that generate heat!) <g>
Tesla, it was claimed, discovered something called "cold electricity" -- that is (according to the claim) -- when you ran it through a circuit -- it cooled rather than heated the circuit!
Now, today we have something sort of like this as thermocouples/Peltier Junctions (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermoelectric_cooling for more/better info on this) -- although it is not known if Tesla's "cold electricity" -- was talking about this effect and/or related -- or not.
Nonetheless -- it seems to me that IF (and it's a big if!) -- IF Tesla's "Cold Electricity" existed, IF it could be rediscovered, and IF it could somehow be integrated on a CPU either as part of or as auxilliary to the main CPU circuitry -- then the CPU cooling problem could be solved(!) -- or at least mitigated somewhat, to the point of allowing/permitting CPU's with higher thermal envelopes/tolerances/CPU speeds...
Again, there are some seriously big IF's there -- but I think it would be a great place for someone to do more research, or for researchers that might have an interest in this area...
It seems to me that Intel and AMD (or heck, any chipmaker for that matter!) -- might (or should!) -- have an interest for more research in this area...