On Thu, 2003-02-20 at 14:14, Dave Jones wrote: > Actually, it's worse than Peter describes. The speed of light (or > electricity) in a vacuum is 300,000 km/sec, but in silicon dioxide it drops > to a little over 205,000 km/sec (index of refraction of silicon dioxide is > between 1.46 and 1.48). So in a 1 Ghz processor, the electrical signal can > only travel about 20 centimeters and in the 2 Ghz case about 10 centimeters.
This assumes you don't mind having multiple bits on the wire at the same time but different distances down it.
