Clock Rate: Clock Cycles Per Second or Its Equivalent

Clock rate
The clock rate typically refers to the

frequency at which the clock circuit of a
processor can generate pulses, which are
used to synchronize the operations (such
as adding two numbers or transferring a
value from one register to another)[1] of its
components,[2] and is used as an indicator
of the processor's speed. It is measured in
clock cycles per second or its equivalent,
the SI unit hertz (Hz). The clock rate of the
first generation of computers was
measured in hertz or kilohertz (kHz), the
first personal computers (PCs) to arrive
throughout the 1970s and 1980s had clock
rates measured in megahertz (MHz), and
in the 21st century the speed of modern
CPUs is commonly advertised in gigahertz
(GHz). This metric is most useful when
comparing processors within the same
family, holding constant other features
that may affect performance. Video card
and CPU manufacturers commonly select
their highest performing units from a
manufacturing batch and set their
maximum clock rate higher, fetching a
higher price.
Determining factors
Binning
Manufacturers of modern processors

typically charge premium prices for
processors that operate at higher clock
rates, a practice called binning. For a given
CPU, the clock rates are determined at the
end of the manufacturing process through
actual testing of each processor. Chip
manufacturers publish a "maximum clock
rate" specification, and they test chips
before selling them to make sure they
meet that specification, even when
executing the most complicated
instructions with the data patterns that
take the longest to settle (testing at the
temperature and voltage that runs the
lowest performance). Processors
successfully tested for compliance with a
given set of standards may be labeled with
a higher clock rate, e.g., 3.50 GHz, while
those that fail the standards of the higher
clock rate yet pass the standards of a
lesser clock rate may be labeled with the
lesser clock rate, e.g., 3.3 GHz, and sold at
a lower price.[3]
Engineering
The clock rate of a CPU is normally

determined by the frequency of an
oscillator crystal. Typically a crystal
oscillator produces a fixed sine wave—the
frequency reference signal. Electronic
circuitry translates that into a square wave
at the same frequency for digital
electronics applications (or, in using a CPU
multiplier, some fixed multiple of the
crystal reference frequency). The clock
distribution network inside the CPU carries
that clock signal to all the parts that need
it. An A/D Converter has a "clock" pin
driven by a similar system to set the
sampling rate. With any particular CPU,
replacing the crystal with another crystal
that oscillates at half the frequency
("underclocking") will generally make the
CPU run at half the performance and
reduce waste heat produced by the CPU.
Conversely, some people try to increase
performance of a CPU by replacing the
oscillator crystal with a higher frequency
crystal ("overclocking").[4] However, the
amount of overclocking is limited by the
time for the CPU to settle after each pulse,
and by the extra heat created.
After each clock pulse, the signal lines

inside the CPU need time to settle to their
new state. That is, every signal line must
finish transitioning from 0 to 1, or from 1
to 0. If the next clock pulse comes before
that, the results will be incorrect. In the
process of transitioning, some energy is
wasted as heat (mostly inside the driving
transistors). When executing complicated
instructions that cause many transitions,
the higher the clock rate the more heat
produced. Transistors may be damaged by
excessive heat.
There is also a lower limit of the clock rate,

unless a fully static core is used.
Historical milestones and

current records
The first electromechanical general
purpose computer, the Z3, operated at a
frequency of about 5–10 Hz. The first
electronic general purpose computer, the
ENIAC, used a 100 kHz clock in its cycling
unit. As each instruction took 20 cycles, it
had an instruction rate of 5 kHz.
The first commercial PC, the Altair 8800

(by MITS), used an Intel 8080 CPU with a
clock rate of 2 MHz (2 million cycles per
second). The original IBM PC (c. 1981)
had a clock rate of 4.77 MHz (4,772,727
cycles per second). In 1992, both Hewlett-
Packard and Digital Equipment
Corporation broke the difficult 100 MHz
limit with RISC techniques in the PA-7100
and AXP 21064 DEC Alpha respectively. In
1995, Intel's P5 Pentium chip ran at
100 MHz (100 million cycles per second).
On March 6, 2000, AMD reached the 1 GHz
milestone a few months ahead of Intel. In
2002, an Intel Pentium 4 model was
introduced as the first CPU with a clock
rate of 3 GHz (three billion cycles per
second corresponding to
~3.3×10−10seconds or 0.33 nanoseconds
per cycle). Since then, the clock rate of
production processors has increased
much more slowly, with performance
improvements coming from other design
changes.
As of 2014, the Guinness World Record for

the highest CPU clock rate is an
overclocked, 8.723 GHz AMD Piledriver-
based FX-8370 chip. It surpassed the
previous record achieved in 2011, an
8.429 GHz AMD FX-8150 Bulldozer-based
chip.[5]
As of mid-2013, the highest clock rate on a

production processor is the IBM zEC12,
clocked at 5.5 GHz, which was released in
August 2012.
Research
Engineers continue to find new ways to
design CPUs that settle a little more
quickly or use slightly less energy per
transition, pushing back those limits,
producing new CPUs that can run at
slightly higher clock rates. The ultimate
limits to energy per transition are explored
in reversible computing.
The first fully reversible CPU, the

Pendulum, was implemented using
standard CMOS transistors in the late
1990s at MIT.[6][7][8][9]
Engineers also continue to find new ways
to design CPUs so that they complete
more instructions per clock cycle, thus
achieving a lower CPI (cycles or clock
cycles per instruction) count, although
they may run at the same or a lower clock
rate as older CPUs. This is achieved
through architectural techniques such as
instruction pipelining and out-of-order
execution which attempts to exploit
instruction level parallelism in the code.
IBM is working on 100Ghz CPU. In 2010,

IBM demonstrated a graphene based
transistor that can execute 100 billion
cycles per second[10].
Comparing
The clock rate of a CPU is most useful for
providing comparisons between CPUs in
the same family. The clock rate is only one
of several factors that can influence
performance when comparing processors
in different families. For example, an IBM
PC with an Intel 80486 CPU running at
50 MHz will be about twice as fast
(internally only) as one with the same CPU
and memory running at 25 MHz, while the
same will not be true for MIPS R4000
running at the same clock rate as the two
are different processors that implement
different architectures and
microarchitectures. Further, a "cumulative
clock rate" measure is sometimes
assumed by taking the total cores and
multiplying by the total clock rate (e.g.
dual core 2.8 GHz being considered
processor cumulative 5.6 GHz). There are
many other factors to consider when
comparing the performance of CPUs, like
the width of the CPU's data bus, the
latency of the memory, and the cache
architecture.
The clock rate alone is generally

considered to be an inaccurate measure of
performance when comparing different
CPUs families. Software benchmarks are
more useful. Clock rates can sometimes
be misleading since the amount of work
different CPUs can do in one cycle varies.
For example, superscalar processors can
execute more than one instruction per
cycle (on average), yet it is not uncommon
for them to do "less" in a clock cycle. In
addition, subscalar CPUs or use of
parallelism can also affect the
performance of the computer regardless
of clock rate.
See also
Crystal oscillator frequencies
Double data rate
Quad data rate
Pulse wave
Clock signal
Instructions per second
References
1. http://foldoc.org/clock%20rate
2. http://foldoc.org/Clock
3. [1] [2]
4. "Overclocking" early processors was
as simple – and as limited – as
changing the discrete clock crystal ...
The advent of adjustable clock
generators has allowed "overclocking"
to be done without changing parts
such as the clock crystal."--
Overclocking Guide Part 1: Risks,
Choices and Benefits : Who
Overclocks? by Thomas Soderstrom
5. Chiappetta, Marco (23 September
2011). "AMD Breaks 8 GHz Overclock
with Upcoming FX Processor, Sets
World Record. The record has been
surpassed with 8794 mhz of
overclocking with AMD FX 8350" .
HotHardware. Retrieved 2012-04-28.
6. Michael Frank. "RevComp - The
Reversible and Quantum Computing
Research Group" .
7. Michael Swaine. "Backward to the
Future" . Dr. Dobb's Journal. 2004.
8. Michael P. Frank. "Reversible
Computing: A Requirement for
Extreme Supercomputing" .
9. Matthew Arthur Morrison. "Theory,
Synthesis, and Application of
Adiabatic and Reversible Logic
Circuits For Security Applications" .
2014.
10. "IBM Details World's Fastest Graphene
Transistor" . PCWorld. 2010-02-05.
Retrieved 2019-04-23.
This article is based on material taken
from the Free On-line Dictionary of
Computing prior to 1 November 2008 and
incorporated under the "relicensing" terms
of the GFDL, version 1.3 or later.
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Clock rate

The clock rate typically refers to the

Manufacturers of modern processors

The clock rate of a CPU is normally

After each clock pulse, the signal lines

There is also a lower limit of the clock rate,

Historical milestones and

The ﬁrst commercial PC, the Altair 8800

As of 2014, the Guinness World Record for

As of mid-2013, the highest clock rate on a

The ﬁrst fully reversible CPU, the

IBM is working on 100Ghz CPU. In 2010,

The clock rate alone is generally

Last edited 12 days ago by an anonymous user

Content is available under CC BY-SA 3.0 unless

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