Tin mining Dredging for ore off the islands shores has churned up sediment which has buried coral reefs where fish live and harmed the local fishing industry. This is despite a prohibition on mining in waters within four miles of Bangka’s shore. Tin mining Tin mining began early in the Bronze Age, as bronze is a copper-tin alloy. Tin is a relatively rare element in the Earth’s crust, with approximately 2 ppm (parts per million), compared to iron with 50,000 ppm. Tin extraction and use can be dated to the beginnings of the Bronze Age around 3000 BCE, when it was observed
Copper interconnect is to use Cu-Ge alloy as the interconnect material so that buffer layer (e.g. TiN) is no longer needed. Epitaxial CuGe layer has been fabricated with an average resistivity of 6 ± 1 μΩ cm and work function of ~4.47 ± 0.02 eV respectively, qualifying it as a good alternative to Cu. Resistance to electromigration, the process by which a metal conductor changes shape under the influence of an electric current flowing through it and which eventually leads to the breaking of the conductor, is significantly better with copper than with aluminium. This improvement in electromigration resistance allows higher currents