- 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.
- Ur (Wikipedia)
Ur (/ΚΙr/; Sumerian: πΆπ , πππ , or πππ Urim; Akkadian: πππ Uru; Arabic: Ψ£ΩΩΩΨ±, romanized: ΚΎΕ«r; Hebrew: ΧΧΦΌΧ¨β) was an important Sumerian city-state in ancient Mesopotamia, located at the site of modern Tell el-Muqayyar (Arabic: ΨͺΩ Ω±ΩΩΩ
ΩΩΩΩΩΩΨ±) in south Iraq’s Dhi Qar Governorate. Although Ur was once a coastal city near the mouth of the Euphrates on the Persian Gulf, the coastline has shifted and the city is now well inland, on the south bank of the Euphrates, 16 km (10 mi) from Nasiriyah in modern-day Iraq. The city dates from the Ubaid period circa 3800 BC, and is recorded in written history as a city-state from the 26th century BC, its first recorded king being Mesannepada.