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iFixit hails replaceable LPCAMM2 laptop memory as a 'big deal' (www.theregister.com)

submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] -3 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

A millimeter i.e a thousands of a meter.

edit: I was wrong, confusingly enough it is a thousands of an inch

[–] [email protected] 9 points 7 months ago (1 children)

5 mm isn't 'just over 0.1 mm'. That can't be right.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago

Well, it depends on your margin of error.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

In the design and manufacture of PCBs (aka circuit boards) a "mil" is a one thousandth of an inch, so it makes sense that's what is being used in this context.

Also the maths check out: 0.005 inches is equal to aprox 0.12mm, "just over 0.1mm".

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I stand corrected, and I see I didn't read the comment thoroughly enough either.

Colloquially as a non-pcb maker I would use and hear the term "mill" as short form millimeter so I assumed it was that.

so TIL :)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago

Yeah, I found it wierd too when I started designing PCBs (as hobby) that "mill" actually stood for thousanth of an inch.

Probably for historical reasons, there are tons of things in the older domains within electronics that are based on inches rather than metric units: for example the spacing between the legs of a microchip in the older chip package formats (so called DIP, the ones with legs that go into holes) is exactly 0.1"

The sizes in more modern electronics isn't usually based on inches anymore, but circuit boards are old tech (even if done with new materials) so there are still a number of measures in there which are based on inches.