Skinny chips
Q: I heard on the news that a chip, now on the market, is only three atoms thick. Is that
visible to the naked eye? How many atoms thick is a strand of hair?
 A: You are probably talking about a transistor
built recently by Intel. It's the world's
smallest and fastest CMOS transistor.
Transistors are switches that control electron
flow in a microchip, the brains of a computer.
Individual transistors about 10 microns tall on the
Intel i4004 microprocessor, the first chip ever built, 1970.
[© 1995-2001 Michael W. Davidson
and The Florida State University, used with permission.]
The new transistor is 0.03 microns long, says
Intel spokesman Michael Sullivan, and
contains gate oxides (an insulating layer) so
skinny it's hard to believe: three atoms thick
(0.0003 microns). But it's not on the market
yet. This is a design breakthrough.
You ask if the transistor is big enough to see.
No, it isn't visible to the naked eye. The
lower limit of visibility is 40 microns, which is
about half-a-hair thick and over a thousand
times bigger than this microscopic transistor.
Finally, how many atoms thick is a human
hair? A million atoms.
Thinking of a 1-million-atom-thick human
hair, puts Intel's gate-oxide achievement into
perspective: three- atoms thick. Incredibly
tiny. "These new transistors," Intel says, will
be able to "...complete 400 million calculations
in the blink of an eye...", literally: a tenth of a
second.
Further Surfing:
Intel
Intel Breakthrough promises superfast chip, USATODAY.com
Galleria, Molecular Expressions Gateway to the Galleries
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