- Franklin County — Thumbnail History (historylink.org)
Franklin County is situated in south-central Washington state. The Columbia River forms its western border and the Snake River forms the southern and eastern borders. The shrub-steppe terrain is composed mainly of bunchgrass and sagebrush. There is little rainfall, but the soil is fertile and can grow anything with adequate moisture…
- Antenna diodes in the Pentium processor (righto.com)
I was studying the silicon die of the Pentium processor and noticed some puzzling structures where signal lines were connected to the silicon substrate for no apparent reason. Two examples are in the photo below, where the metal wiring (orange) connects to small square regions of doped silicon (gray), isolated from the rest of the circuitry. I did some investigation and learned that these structures are “antenna diodes,” special diodes that protect the circuitry from damage during manufacturing. In this blog post, I discuss the construction of the Pentium and explain how these antenna diodes work.
- Franklin County, Washington (Wikipedia)
Franklin County is a county located in the U.S. state of Washington. As of the 2020 census, its population was 96,749. The county seat and largest city is Pasco. The county was formed out of Whitman County on November 28, 1883, and is named for Benjamin Franklin.
