Tin in solder or some other meals can form spiky crystals when under stress. These whiskers can form short circuits if not properly insulated or not alloyed with other metals.
Tin in solder or some other meals can form spiky crystals when under stress. These whiskers can form short circuits if not properly insulated or not alloyed with other metals.
Man, that “lol” really annoys me and comes accross condescending. If you’ve got no arguments, there is no need for an academic dick measuring contest. You can just leave it. To answer your question:
In parts, yes. Not my specialisation though, but enough to be able to distinguish electromigration from whiskering.
Being pedantic is part of the job of an engineer. I’m an engineer working in research. I don’t call electromigration “metal whiskering” or vice versa.
Besides, as I’ve mentioned, it wouldn’t even be pedantic to distinguish them that way as the differences are not miniscule. They are formed differently and look differently.
Yes, to the post which is titled “TIL computers can sometimes grow crystals” you said:
Which is still wrong. We can observe electromigration in ICs, or in metallic conductors in general, but this is a different phenomenon than whiskering, which can look like those crystals while conductors affected by electromigration form voids and protrusions out of material build-ups which usually can’t even be seen by the bare eye.
But maybe that was a misleading expression and you didn’t mean to equate those two.