1 micrometre

Semiconductor manufacturing processes
10 µm — 1971 3 µm — 1975 1.5 µm — 1982 1 µm — 1985 800 nm (.80 µm) — 1989 600 nm (.60 µm) — 1994 350 nm (.35 µm) — 1995 250 nm (.25 µm) — 1998 180 nm (.18 µm) — 1999 130 nm (.13 µm) — 2000 90 nm — 2002 65 nm — 2006 45 nm — 2008 32 nm — 2010 22 nm — 2011 16 nm — approx. 2013 11 nm — approx. 2015
Half-nodes

Comparison of sizes of semiconductor manufacturing process nodes with some microscopic objects and visible light wavelengths. At this scale, the width of a human hair is about 10 times that of the image.^[1]

To help compare different orders of magnitude this page lists some items with lengths between 10⁻⁶ and 10⁻⁵ m (between 1 and 10 micrometres, or µm).

Distances shorter than 1 µm

• ~0.7–300 µm — Wavelength of infrared radiation
• 1 µm — the side of square of area 10⁻¹² m²
• 1 µm — edge of cube of volume 10⁻¹⁸ m³ (one fL.)
• 1–10 µm — diameter of typical bacterium
• 1.55 µm — wavelength of light used in optical fibre
• 3–4 µm — size of a typical yeast cell
• 3–5 µm — size of a human spermatozoon's head (radius by length)^{[citation needed]}
• 6 µm — anthrax spore
• 7 µm — diameter of the nucleus of typical eukaryotic cell
• about 7 μm — diameter of human red blood cells ^[2]
• 3–8 µm — width of strand of spider web silk^[3]
• 8 µm — width of a chloroplast
• 9 µm — thickness of the tape in a 120-minute compact cassette.
• about 10 µm — size of a fog, mist or cloud water droplet

Distances longer than 10 µm

See also

Notes

1. ^ Graham T. Smith (2002). Industrial metrology. Springer. pp. 253. ISBN 1852335076. 
2. ^ DNA From The Beginning, section 6: Genes are real things., "Amination" section, final slide
3. ^ Gordon Ramel. "Spider Silk". http://www.earthlife.net/chelicerata/silk.html. Retrieved 2008-12-04. "garden spider silk has a diametre of about 0.003 mm ... Dragline silk (about .00032 inch (.008 mm) in Nephila)"