Time - Energy - Heat
- Gate delay - time taken for electricity flows from the input line of a gate to output line
- wire delay - time to travel from the output of one gate to the input of the next connecting gate
- ^ fundamental factors that determine how fast the processor can execute the program
- another factor is how many gates can do useful work simultaneously (operating in parallel)
- Gate operations consume energy and generate heat, which greatly impacts the design of computer architectures of today