For relatively large objects, use a micrometer screw gauge: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micrometer
Or use a travelling microscope: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travelling_microscope
Visible light is at least 350nm across, so that would be useless for photographing a modern chip. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-ray_microscope
Even X-rays are a bit big for measuring details on a 32nm chip. I suspect they used an electron microscope: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_microscope
An expensive electron microscope can resolve individual atoms. That is nowhere near the limit of modern technology. If you want to take a look at the structure of sub-atomic particles, you need a toy that probably wont fit in your back garden: http://lhc.web.cern.ch/lhc/
"I don't think "micro-square-meter" are official or even used anywhere"
It's horribly ambiguous, so I don't think anyone *should* ever do it. As it happens, I think 1μm² *ought* to be interpreted as 1μ(m²) because that's the precedence of the mathematical operations involved, and the nice thing about SI units is that they *are* mathematically well-behaved and so anyone who does anything to break that is a total plonker. That said, whenever I meet such things in real like I always apply sanity checks and it is usually obvious from the context that they are indeed plonkers.
For a related example, consider the "hectare", which is apparently 100 of some utter abomination called an "are" which is 100 square metres and (allegedly) the "official" derived unit of area in the metric system. Does that strike you as a remotely rational unit of area for a system that measures lengths in metres. Thought not.
Now can we get back to sensible units like nano-furlongs?
It's implied - the area taken up are in units of area (\mu m)^2 ( or (\mu m)^2 if we're being annoyingly pedantic - it's not ambiguous at all...!), therefore if 1 things takes up area A its density [this thing being assumed to be 2d, not 3d] is 1/A (units of \mu m^{-2} ). In conclusion the measurement in square-micrometers carries across directly to the 2d packing density.
It's all a matter of what works - nobody started moaning on when all the Higgs related articles were saying the Higgs mass is expected to be ~ 130GeV. GeV is energy, but since this relates to mass via E=mc^2 we just write down the energy. Particularly useful when the thing's moving, since we need to separate the rest mass [energy] from the energy it has by virtue of its motion, excited degrees of freedom, etc.
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Intel to present 32nm chip while AMD shows off 22nm part
Alan
Title #
Posted Thursday 30th October 2008 17:28 GMT
Can someone tell me how they measure these small distances, because my ruler only goes down to 1mm...
Rob
re: small rulers #
Posted Thursday 30th October 2008 17:46 GMT
i read somewhere that they use dwarves with really small rulers to measure those tiny distances.
Nigel Wright
Using... #
Posted Thursday 30th October 2008 18:05 GMT
SEM's.
Flocke Kroes
How to measure small distances #
Posted Thursday 30th October 2008 19:30 GMT
For relatively large objects, use a micrometer screw gauge: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micrometer
Or use a travelling microscope: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travelling_microscope
Visible light is at least 350nm across, so that would be useless for photographing a modern chip. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-ray_microscope
Even X-rays are a bit big for measuring details on a 32nm chip. I suspect they used an electron microscope: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_microscope
An expensive electron microscope can resolve individual atoms. That is nowhere near the limit of modern technology. If you want to take a look at the structure of sub-atomic particles, you need a toy that probably wont fit in your back garden: http://lhc.web.cern.ch/lhc/
Sam Green
Re: Using... #
Posted Thursday 30th October 2008 19:30 GMT
That's: Small (Extremely) Men to you and I.
brainwrong
Measurement #
Posted Thursday 30th October 2008 19:30 GMT
"It has a density of 0.171μm², EE Times reports."
Hmm. 291 (??) megabytes.
291x1024x1024x0.171e-6 = 52.18 square metres.
Surely 0.171pm² would be more accurate.
I think maybe you meant to write 0.171 (µm)².
Karl Rasmusson
a square micrometres is an area not a density #
Posted Friday 31st October 2008 00:25 GMT
The title says it all... describing square micrometers as a density is like calling litres a weight.
I guess describing units of measure accurately is just another thing that's become unimportant...
Frank Bough
Read it Again, Brainwrong #
Posted Friday 31st October 2008 00:25 GMT
291Mega BITS.
F Seiler
@brainwrong #
Posted Friday 31st October 2008 08:45 GMT
1μm² means 1e-12m², so the () are implicit. "Square-micrometer" - it don't think "micro-square-meter" are official or even used anywhere.
Ken Hagan
@F Seller #
Posted Friday 31st October 2008 10:31 GMT
"I don't think "micro-square-meter" are official or even used anywhere"
It's horribly ambiguous, so I don't think anyone *should* ever do it. As it happens, I think 1μm² *ought* to be interpreted as 1μ(m²) because that's the precedence of the mathematical operations involved, and the nice thing about SI units is that they *are* mathematically well-behaved and so anyone who does anything to break that is a total plonker. That said, whenever I meet such things in real like I always apply sanity checks and it is usually obvious from the context that they are indeed plonkers.
For a related example, consider the "hectare", which is apparently 100 of some utter abomination called an "are" which is 100 square metres and (allegedly) the "official" derived unit of area in the metric system. Does that strike you as a remotely rational unit of area for a system that measures lengths in metres. Thought not.
Now can we get back to sensible units like nano-furlongs?
Anonymous Coward
@a square micrometres is an area not a density #
Posted Friday 31st October 2008 16:31 GMT
It's implied - the area taken up are in units of area (\mu m)^2 ( or (\mu m)^2 if we're being annoyingly pedantic - it's not ambiguous at all...!), therefore if 1 things takes up area A its density [this thing being assumed to be 2d, not 3d] is 1/A (units of \mu m^{-2} ). In conclusion the measurement in square-micrometers carries across directly to the 2d packing density.
It's all a matter of what works - nobody started moaning on when all the Higgs related articles were saying the Higgs mass is expected to be ~ 130GeV. GeV is energy, but since this relates to mass via E=mc^2 we just write down the energy. Particularly useful when the thing's moving, since we need to separate the rest mass [energy] from the energy it has by virtue of its motion, excited degrees of freedom, etc.