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Semiconductor Technologies Guide
An anonymous reader writes "X-bit labs have posted an interesting article on manufacturing technologies used in the semiconductor industry. Good reading if you want to get a really indepth idea of technologies used for semiconductor manufacturing by IBM, Intel, AMD, and others."
between the transistor and an influenza (closely related to SARS) virus, no less.
I don't think it shows the smallness of the transistor as much as I suddenly realized how much further we have to go before hitting biological complexity.
the surface of the virus has crazy number of protein receptors that allows it to latch onto only the proper cells, and inside a strand of genetic material that contains thousands, if not millions of ACGT pairs - which puts information density of our most hardcore RAM at a great shame. Actually there are probably other stuff inside, but IANAVirologist.
Looooong road ahead...
side note: I don't think the gearheads are so obsessed about the manufacturing process for cars, nor the martha-stuart followers the manufacturing process for triple flower-pattern guest-only bath towels, why are geeks sooooo into the photolithography process?
Anybody wants to offer an explanation?
My life in the land of the rising sun.
and inside a strand of genetic material that contains thousands, if not millions of ACGT pairs
Actually it's 1501 base pairs (so 3002 bits of information) in one strain of the Influenza B virus.
"... ACGT pairs - which puts information density of our most hardcore RAM at a great shame."
Perhaps; but we can write and rewrite to our "most hardcore RAM" much faster than genetic information in ACGT pairs can mutate.
this is THE most poorly written article i've actually tried to read on the web in years.
"Besides, the characteristics of the channel become more predictable, while the transistor itself - more robust to various errors, like those provoked by space particles that may get into the channel and ionize it."
i'm not even going to get into the english, which quite frankly is horrid. "robust to errors"? "space particles" (yes i know what he's trying to say)? "ionize it"? ionize the channel? (yes again, i understand he means the carriers, but that's not what happens)
most of his information is unsubstantiated at best. There are no references nor citations. Most of it seems somewhat accurate but only because i understand what they were TRYING to say. If i didn't know about fab tech to begin with i would have been very misled.
If you want to know about semiconductor fabrication technology, do yourself a favor and borrow a textbook from your EE budies, then read up in journals.