Technology · #1005 biggest of 1,014
How big is a transistor?
3 nm
A transistor measures 3 nm. That's about 30 atoms lined up end to end.
By the numbers
- That's 3 nanometers (nm) — smaller than a wavelength of visible light.
- You'd need about 567 million of them stacked up to reach the height of an average adult.
- Roughly 30 atoms could line up across it.
- Out of all 1,014 things in this collection, it ranks #1005 by size.
Size comparison
How transistor stacks up against things of a similar size. Tap any bar to explore it.
influenza virus
1.0e+2 nm
coronavirus
1.0e+2 nm
ribosome
20 nm
transistor (modern chip)
3.0 nm
transistor
3.0 nm
strand of DNA (width)
2.5 nm
strand of DNA (width)
2.5 nm
glucose molecule
1.0 nm
buckyball (C60)
7.0e+2 pm
Bars use a logarithmic scale so everything fits — real differences are even more extreme!
Fun fact
It's so small that about 333,333 of them would fit across a single millimeter.
More in Technology
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