[cdawall]

Originally Posted by cadaveca

a chip has to leak...


it takes in all that wattage it consumes, and really, converts it to heat. Not really much else, really.

silicon is a semiconductor, and it's leakage changes according to temperatures. Cool a good "air" chip too much, and it won't be able to leak the power as heat sufficiently, and then that can causes errors or stalls, or maybe even damage? Not sure on that last bit.


Anyway, so a "very leaky" chip, cooled to the same temps, has greater ability for leakage at the same temps, and ergo, can go a bit further before it hits that critical point where it's just too cold.


This is over and above the ability of the chip to be effectively cooled and handle the extra wattage(by removing the heat via leakage....)

See the way I always looked at it was you have to have high leakage to loose some of the wattage. Low leak chips are the ones that normally fry when they are pushed to 1.8-2v under LN2. I always assumed it was the voltage drop across the chip that kept them alive at high voltage.