29 ms·
Sorry if that came off abrasively. avs733 mentioned everything is on a different scale in semiconductors and I forgot how long it took me to grasp that. In sch
by froindt 8y ago
Sorry if that came off abrasively. avs733 mentioned everything is on a different scale in semiconductors and I forgot how long it took me to grasp that.
In school (industrial engineering) we talked about length and thickness tolerances being quite tight at 1/10,000 inch. The units used in semiconductors are nanometers, angstroms, etc. You might do a process and lay down just a couple atom thick layer of material...I had no idea that was physically possible.
- avs733 8y agoI do enjoy when we are all nice to each other. Semiconductors still blow me mind...eventually we will run out of base silicon to use and are possibly really fucked but its been a fun ride so far.
- froindt 8y agoThe thing that shocked me the most is that it's economically viable. The tolerances are so tight, the machines so expensive, the volumes so big, that the math works. If I had no idea what semiconductors were and you just sat me down and started explaining things, it'd seem like magic that it would even be physically possible, much less economically...but somehow it is.
- avs733 8y agoIt is the most bullshit sounding industry ever to an outsider. You make things smaller than the wavelength of light, out of sand, to turn on and off trillions of times a second, to do math, to make all the world's information instantly available on a metal and plastic block I keep in my pocket? No, thats not real, that's a silly science fiction novel.