Jason Hall takes us through several SQL Server features which use tempdb behind the scenes:
Since SQL Server 2005, triggers use the version store, which is kept in tempdb. So, if you’re using triggers, they are implicitly using tempdb. Remember that triggers are set-based, and you’ll get version data for every affected row. For really big batches, this can turn out to be quite a bit of version data.
Click through for several more examples.