Electronic – How do electrical signals not get out of sync in CPUs and other integrated circuits

integrated-circuitsignal

I'm a newbie at electronics and this question has kept me occupied for a while:

How do electrical signals not get out of sync in integrated circuits and CPUs?

For example, let's take a look at 3 bit adder:


(source: visionics.a.se)

As you can see, signal from "C" going the bottom path goes through just one logic element, however signal from "A" has to go through at least 2 or 3 logic elements.

Wouldn't the signal "A" get delayed? What if one signal goes through no logic elements, and the other has to go through 100,000? How do they get synchronized? How does CPU make sure right ones and zeros get processed at the right time?

Best Answer

This is why there is clock. Indeed sometimes there is unstable output on logic circuits like adders, but the output is only registered on clock strobe, so the time to stabilize is known. This is exactly why you can't run with clock frequency higher than specified- signals will not get on time yo inputs.