CPU temperature as a parameter of computer operation

A person who wants to keep up with progress and keep pace with the times, is forced to buy a computer and learn how to use it. This is easy to explain, because computer technology is integrating with every passing year into all spheres of life. Its help to the person is obvious: high-precision calculations, management of responsible technological processes, entertainments and many other things. At the same time, a person also needs the ability to support his electronic assistant in a workable state. One of the most important parameters of the computer is the temperature of its processor. To understand what it is and why it is so important, it is necessary to go a little deeper into the device of microprocessor technology.

All electronic circuits consist of a huge number of elements: transistors, capacitors, diodes with a certain resistance. One of the properties of the electric current is the heating of the conductors caused by it, due to the electrical resistance. Any chip, in fact, is a collection of many such elements assembled in a single housing, so its heating is not a malfunction, but a natural physical process, albeit undesirable. The fact is that the high temperature changes the properties of semiconductors and metals that make up the microcircuit, and therefore leads to unpredictable consequences, up to thermal breakdown and its failure.
One of the key elements of any computer is a microprocessor or CPU (Central Processing Unit). If you look inside the system unit (casing), then the largest chip on the motherboard is exactly the same processor. It always has a cooling metal radiator and a blowing fan. The number of transistors in modern processors has long exceeded 500 million, so temperature control is simply necessary. The specification always specifies the CPU temperature limit, which should not be exceeded. For example, for modern Intel processors "Tcase max" (maximum temperature) is up to 60 degrees. Accordingly, the permissible temperature of the processor is all those values that do not exceed "Tcase max", and, the lower they are, the better.

The temperature of the processor depends on:

• Ambient air temperature. With its growth, heat exchange deteriorates;
• The contact area of the radiator and the processor. That's why good radiators touching the processor side polished to shine;
• Generation processor. The newer models are made using an improved process technology, which involves reducing the elements that make up the chip;
• Supply voltage. Since the current and voltage, in accordance with the well-known Ohm's law, directly depend on each other, and the increase in current strength causes an increase in temperature in the conductor, it is quite understandable that the lower the voltage value, the less heating. The tendency of reducing supply voltages is clearly visible in every new generation of microprocessors;
• Frequency of its operation. The more operations the processor executes per unit of time, the correspondingly, the more thermal energy will be released.

In addition to all of the above, the temperature of the processor depends on several other reasons, among which we should especially note the support of various brand technologies. Manufacturers have long understood that the low temperature of the processor can serve as an additional argument in favor of buying their products. Therefore, the processors were "taught" to reduce their frequency in the absence of a significant computational load, reduce the power consumption and disable inactive logic blocks.