Does anyone know of where one can get unbiased (i.e., objective) transistor leakage power figures for the various CPU processors? I have checked various benchmarking web sites, but sometimes it is hard to get the feel that it is not subjective. Also is there any detailed analysis available of the electric field associated with the leakage current? Much appreciated, Fred
Transistor leakage is measured in microamps, not in watts. CPUs have millions of transistors, in various states depending on operations (if any) being done. CPU power requirements can vary widely, depending on the program or instruction mix. One "benchmark" can be "tuned" tomake a CPU look better than a (horrors!) competitors. And benchmarks are rarely representative of actual useage by "the average user", what ever "average" means...
Yeah, I was afraid of that. I have read that tunneling thru the gate dielectric is now the dominant factor in the leakage current. So I wanted to find out more about the electric field associated with this current.
AFAIK, that tunneling is most dominate in the (latest) dinky geometries, and we may not see CPUs based on the latest and "greatest" dinky geometries for a few years. Maybe we will be lucky in that the manufacturers will learn that the resulting excessive power drain cannot be tolerated in light of the green movement (and laws) by various government organizations, especially being compounded by their propensity to increase the number of transistors by such large amounts... ....furthermore, the equipment costs seem to go up by the cube (or more?) of the inverse of linewidth (in the billions now).
With oxide thickness ~ 1 nm, tunneling has to be an issue. The wave-function of the electron or hole should be important at this scale. I don't have any "real" numbers on the actual current magnitude, but if leakage is something like 100 nA/transistor, and there are a 100 million transistors, operating at 1V, that is 10 W of power dissipation right there.
