Gigahertz to Terahertz (GHz to THz)

1 gigahertz equals 0.001 terahertz exactly.

1 gigahertz = 0.001 terahertz

How to convert gigahertz to terahertz

To convert gigahertz to terahertz, multiply the number of gigahertz by 0.001. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply terahertz by 1,000.

terahertz = gigahertz × 0.001

Example: 10 gigahertz = 0.01 terahertz.

About these units

Gigahertz (GHz)

Metric (SI)Current unit

One billion hertz. Modern processor clocks and Wi-Fi run at gigahertz frequencies.

On 6 March 2000, AMD demonstrated a processor passing the 1 GHz mark, a few days before Intel shipped 1 GHz systems, according to Wikipedia. After that, clock rates rose more slowly: Intel's 3 GHz Pentium 4 arrived in 2002, and later performance came more from design changes than raw speed, since higher clock rates produce more heat. The highest boost clock on a production processor is listed as 6.2 GHz for the Intel i9-14900KS in 2024.

A gigahertz is a billion hertz, the range known as microwaves. The most familiar example may be the kitchen: consumer microwave ovens typically run at 2.45 GHz, a band that is available for industrial, scientific and medical use worldwide. Percy Spencer of Raytheon discovered the heating effect in 1945 when a radar set melted a candy bar in his pocket, and Raytheon sold the first commercial oven, the Radarange, in 1947.

1 gigahertz = 1,000,000,000 hertz (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Clock rate; Wikipedia: Microwave oven; Wikipedia: Gigahertz

Terahertz (THz)

Metric (SI)Current unit

10¹² hertz. Infrared radiation lies at tens of terahertz.

A trillion cycles each second is the scale where electronics meets optics. The terahertz, 10 to the power 12 hertz, takes its base unit from Heinrich Hertz, the physicist who gave conclusive proof that electromagnetic waves exist. The IEC established the name hertz in 1935, and the CGPM adopted it in 1960, replacing cycles per second and its multiples such as kilocycles and megacycles.

Radiation between 0.1 and 10 THz, with wavelengths from 3 mm down to 30 micrometres, lies between microwaves and far infrared. For years this stretch was called the terahertz gap, because practical sources and detectors were hard to build. Today it is used for security screening, spectroscopy and imaging, and has been proposed for fast wireless links. Infrared light spans roughly tens of terahertz, and visible light is about 400 to 790 THz.

1 terahertz = 1,000,000,000,000 hertz (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Hertz; Wikipedia: Terahertz radiation; Wikipedia: Orders of magnitude (frequency)

Related conversions

See all frequency units.