 Wait states can be used to reduce the energy consumption of a processor, by allowing the main processor clock to either slow down or temporarily pause during the wait state if the CPU has no other work to do.Rather than spinning uselessly in a tight loop waiting for data, sporadically reducing the clock speed in this manner helps to keep the processor core cool and to extend battery life in portable computing devices.On IBM mainframes, the term "wait state" is used with a different meaning.