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Anon thinks about CPUs (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

The thing about real world processor design though is that all those abstractions are leaky.

At higher levels of design you end up having to consider things like the electrical behavior of transistors, thermal density, the molecular dynamics of strained silicon crystals (and how they behave under thermal cycling), antenna theory, and the limits and quirks of the photolithography process you're using (which is a whole other can of worms with a million things to consider).

Not everyone needs to know everything about every part of the process (that's impossible), but when you're pushing the limits of high performance chips each layer of the design is entangled enough with the others to make everyone's job really complicated.

EDIT: Some interesting links:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U885cIhOXBM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljZt_TQegHE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdlZ8KYVtPU