The clock rate is the rate in cycles per second (measured in
hertz) or the frequency of the clock in any
synchronous circuit, such as a
central processing unit (CPU). For example, a
crystal oscillator frequency reference typically is synonymous with a fixed sinusoidal waveform, a clock rate is that frequency reference translated by electronic circuitry (
AD Converter) into a corresponding square wave pulse [typically] pr
sampling rate for digital electronics applications. In this context the use of the word,
speed (physical movement), should
not be confused with frequency or its corresponding clock rate. Thus, the term "clock speed" is a
misnomer.
A single
clock cycle (typically shorter than a
nanosecond in modern non-
embedded microprocessors) toggles between a logical zero and a logical one state.
CPU manufacturers typically charge premium prices for CPUs 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 CPU. CPUs that are tested as complying with a given set of standards may be labeled with a higher clock rate, e.g., 1.50 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., 1.33 GHz, and sold at a lower price.
The clock of a CPU is normally determined by the
frequency of an
oscillator crystal. The first commercial PC, the
Altair 8800 (by MITS), used an Intel 8080 CPU with a clock rate of 2 MHz (2 million cycles/second). The original
IBM PC (c. 1981) had a clock rate of 4.77 MHz (4,772,727 cycles/second). In 1995,
Intel's P5 Pentium chip ran at 100 MHz (100 million cycles/second), and in 2002, an Intel
Pentium 4 model was introduced as the first CPU with a clock rate of 3 GHz (three billion cycles/second corresponding to ~0.3 10
−9seconds per cycle).
With any particular CPU, replacing the crystal with another crystal that oscillates half the frequency ("
underclocking") will generally make the CPU run at half the performance. It will also make the CPU produce roughly half as much waste heat. Conversely, some people try to increase performance of a CPU by replacing the oscillator crystal with a higher frequency crystal ("
overclocking").
[1] 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. 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).
Also, some energy is wasted as heat (mostly inside the driving transistors) whenever a signal line makes a transition from the 0 to the 1 state or vice versa. When executing complicated instructions that cause many transitions, higher clock rates produce more heat. If electricity is converted to heat faster than a particular
computer cooling system can cool it, then the transistors may get hot enough to be destroyed.
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, although no reversible computers have yet been implemented. Engineers have struggled to design CPUs that run much faster than about 3.5 GHz due to thermodynamic limits in current semiconductor process technologies and other limitations. The highest clock speed microprocessor ever sold commercially to date is found inside IBM's
zEnterprise 196 mainframe, introduced in July, 2010. The z196's cores run continuously at 5.2 GHz.
Engineers also continue to find new ways to design CPUs so that, although they may run at the same or a lower clock rate as older CPUs, they get more instructions completed per clock cycle.