Re:Apple Bought $578M Worth of Sapphire
by jlangenauer on Saturday November 09, 2013 @03:16AM
(#6701070)
Al - the case
S - probably a component of the Al alloy, it helps with machinability
Li - the battery, possibly also the case alloy
B, P - semiconductor doping
Cu - Almost certainly used somewhere
Pb, Sn - solder
Anything else?
Re:Apple Bought $578M Worth of Sapphire
by noir_lord on Saturday November 09, 2013 @06:58AM
(#6701392)
Not much Pb in modern solders (in fact in the EU you can't add lead to any solder, I think you can have trace amounts if they are "naturally" there).
Modern solder is pretty crappy compared to the stuff I used to work with in the 80's and 90's, it's much trickier to work with, whiskers are more of a problem and I've found (the few times I've used it) that it seems to require more heat.
Ga and As for doping too
Re:Apple Bought $578M Worth of Sapphire
by driverdan on Saturday November 09, 2013 @09:13AM
(#6701670)
You left out a lot of the phone's components. The screen, the speakers / mic, other electrical components. Most components use alloys, not pure elements.
http://www.mining.com/infographic-the-periodic-table-of-smar... rounds up the rare earth elements and where they are used
I'm not sure why this should be a particularly large number. Obvious candidates:
Au - circuitry
C, H - plastic
Si - glass, chips
Al, O - corundum
Whatever powers the battery.
Whatever else goes into the chips and circuitry.
> there were probably 100s of innovations just to mine and purify and machine sapphire in past 100s of years so that in 2000s we can finally produce acceptable quality tiny camera lens
"Purifying" sapphire doesn't make much sense. You'd want to melt it, get the iron (or whatever colorant) out, and reform it. It's easier to just start with pure aluminum oxide, which is what they're doing.
As far as I'm aware (and I'd love to be corrected, since gems are a personal interest), the general method of machining gemstones is to abrade them against a surface coated in invisibly small diamonds. How many innovations you want to count in the process is, as always, somewhat flexible; but it's fairly cool technology.