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bz bz is offline
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Default CMOS DRAM chips and static

Eeyore wrote in
:



bz wrote:

Eeyore wrote in

Those 'tiny' currents can be quite large
when discharging a significant charge.


Yes, but you can not 'have a significant charge' on a chip without
having a high voltage differential between the chip and the conductor!


You can certainly have a charge that does not exceed the breakdown
potential of the IC oxide layer yet results in probably several AMPS of
instantaneous current when shorted into close to zero ohms through an
aluminium foil sheet.

Why do you NITWITS feel the need to argue about the BLEEDING OBVIOUS ?


Why do you feel the need to insult someone that is trying to help you
understand something?

A half amp is .5 coul/sec. This represents about 3.121 x10^18 electrons.
A penny (1950 vintage) weighs about 3.1 gm and contains about 2.9 x 10^22
atoms.
There are clearly quite a few electrons in that penny, but NOT a huge excess
of electrons, normally.

Most chips have very small amounts of metal in them. Lets say the gate in
question holds 1 mg of metal.
(it is almost certainly MUCH less than that, but lets go with that for the
moment)
If it were copper, there would be about 9.3x10^18 atoms, so out of every
three atoms, we would need to have 1 excess electron in order to have a
charge of .5 coul.

The electric field is proportional to the charge and inversely proportional
to the square of the distance between the charge centers(the dielectric
thickness in this case)

A volt is a joule per coulomb.

For a parallel plate capacitor, V = q/C. so, what is the value of the
capacitor we have charged inside that chip?

Lets say it is 1 pf. To charge the cap with .5 coul of electrons what voltage
do we need?
My calculations show 5x10^11 volts. That seems a bit over any gate rating I
can imagine for any normal chips.

Even if the gate were 10 uF, a charge of half a coulomb would require 50 kV.

As I said before, current from charge on the chip is NOT a significant
factor.
VOLTAGE from charges on the chip ARE the hazard.

Do your own calculations and stop calling people names.



--
bz 73 de N5BZ k

please pardon my infinite ignorance, the set-of-things-I-do-not-know is an
infinite set.

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