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# Particles on Chips

| Here you can see a collection of SEM pictures which not only illustrate graphically the "particle" problem in making chips, but also have a certain esthetical appeal
|  | Click on the link for an enlarged view.
|  | Red blood cells on a 1 Mbit memory (large size) | Hair (from a female) on a 256k memory chip. Just one of the little flakes of the hair would be enough to cover one memory cell. (large size) | Hair on a 4Mbit memory chip. - just to show how structures decrease. (large size) | Here a metal particle, probably a tiny drop of Al that was burnt of as a droplet by an electrical discharge in a sputtering machine. In was coated with Al which was subsequently structured by etching. Four conducting lines are now short circuited. (large size) | Mother nature is still ahead when it comes to small structures. Here we see spiderwebs on a 256 k DRAM. A typical strand of spider silk consists of several individual strings with diameters around 0.2 µm. (large size) | Here is a particle of unknown nature. Whatever it is, it will kill a chip.

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