Overview
The power wall is the reason CPU clock speeds stopped increasing rapidly in the mid-2000s. As chips got smaller and faster, they began to generate more heat than could be economically removed using standard cooling methods.
Causes
- Dynamic Power: Increases with the square of the voltage and linearly with frequency.
- Leakage Power: Increases as transistors get smaller and thinner.
Resulting Shift
The power wall forced the industry to move from single-core performance (frequency) to multi-core architectures and specialized accelerators (efficiency).