Here are a few photos of the kinds of things I work with (although I do NOT work for Intel):

Photos: Intel’s 45-nanometer process

The first photo is of a wafer, the size of this one is 300mm, or the same as that of an LP record (for those old enough to remember them), 12 inches across.

The second photo is of what we refer to as a “test chip” which is a set of special structures we use to develop the technology needed to make true integrated circuit chips on an industrial scale cheaply enough and with sufficient performance for us to sell them and make money (that is the point behind all of this, to make money for the company, you know…)

It appears to me that the third photo is of what we call an “SRAM bitcell” which is part of the cache memory in a CPU like a Pentium or PowerPC. The bitcell holds one bit, in other words, a one or a zero, used in the memory. The area required for one bitcell is a measure of how effecient a technology is in using space on a chip, and it is the reduction of space on a chip which is one of many factors that has played a role to increase performance of electronics in the past two decades.

There is no scale marker on the third photo, but my guess based upon a true 45nm technology would imply that the size of the horizontal bars you see is about 35 to 38nm from top to bottom. This is smaller than the average virus, and far smaller than a bacterium. A human hair is thousands of times larger. To give additional perspective, the average distance between atoms in some of the materials we use to make the chips, like silicon dioxide (also known as “glass”) is about 0.05nm.

In other words, a 35nm line is about 700 or so atoms across.

We are now making structures small enough that they measure less than a thousand atoms across, and even more startlingly, some are less than 6 atoms thick!

If that ain’t “geek cool” I don’t know what is…

Technorati Tags: technology, geek cool, science and technology, science & technology

It appears that the object of many a radical-right-winger nutjob’s wet dreams is just as intemperate and ill-mannered as many a radical-left-wing moonbat:

Coulter Jokes About Poisoning Justice

Fri Jan 27, 12:00 PM ET, Associated Press

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - Conservative commentator Ann Coulter, speaking at a traditionally black college, joked that Justice
John Paul Stevens should be poisoned.

Coulter had told the Philander Smith College audience Thursday that more conservative justices were needed on the Supreme Court to change the current law on abortion. Stevens is one of the court’s most liberal members.

“We need somebody to put rat poisoning in Justice Stevens’ creme brulee,” Coulter said. “That’s just a joke, for you in the media.”

Coulter has made a career of writing and lecturing on her strongly conservative views.

At one point during her address, which was part of a lecture series, some audience members booed when she cut off two questioners. “I’m not going to be lectured to,” Coulter told one man in a raised voice.

She drew more boos when she said the crack cocaine problem “has pretty much gone away.”

I hear the cries now, “But the moonbats are worse!”

Face it, boys and girls, you need to clean your own house first before you tar everyone who “don’t think right” with the brush wetted by the loonies, otherwise you subject yourself to the same type of judgement.

Or, perhaps, you could stop engaging in mindless labelling of everyone who “don’t think right” and actually listen to what is being said and engage in a real discussion.

Nahhhh…

That’ll never happen, it’s too much fucking work, and people are too damn lazy to do their own thinking, much less actually discuss and defend their positions.

Technorati Tags: commentary, right-wing, right wing