Nanosecond

nanosecond
nanosecond
Unit system	SI
Unit of	time
Symbol	ns
Conversions
1 ns in ...	... is equal to ...
SI units	10−9 s

A nanosecond (ns) is a unit of time in the International System of Units (SI) equal to one billionth of a second, that is, ⁠1/1000000000⁠ of a second, or 10⁻⁹ seconds.

The term combines the SI prefix nano- indicating a 1 billionth submultiple of an SI unit (e.g. nanogram, nanometre, etc.) and second, the primary unit of time in the SI.

A nanosecond is to one second, as one second is to approximately 31.69 years.

A nanosecond is equal to 1000 picoseconds or ⁠1/1000⁠ microsecond. Time units ranging between 10⁻⁸ and 10⁻⁷ seconds are typically expressed as tens or hundreds of nanoseconds.

Time units of this granularity are commonly found in telecommunications, pulsed lasers, and related aspects of electronics.

Common measurements

0.001 nanoseconds – one picosecond
0.96 nanoseconds – 100 Gigabit Ethernet Interpacket gap
96 nanoseconds – Gigabit Ethernet Interpacket gap
1.0 nanosecond – cycle time of an electromagnetic wave with a frequency of 1 GHz (10⁹ hertz).
1.0 nanosecond – electromagnetic wavelength of 1 light-nanosecond. Equivalent to 0.3 m radio band.
1 nanosecond – time precision in Go^[1]^[2]^[3]
1.016703362164 nanoseconds (by definition) – time taken by light to travel 1 foot in vacuum.^{[n 1]}
3.3356409519815 nanoseconds (by definition) – time taken by light to travel 1 metre in vacuum.^[4]
8 nanoseconds – typical propagation delay of 74HC series logic chips based on HCMOS technology, commonly used for digital electronics in the mid-1980s.^[5]
10 nanoseconds – one "shake", (as in a "shake of a lamb's tail") approximate time of one generation of a nuclear chain reaction with fast neutrons
10 nanoseconds – cycle time for frequency 100 MHz (10⁸ hertz), radio wavelength 3 m (VHF, FM band)
10 nanoseconds – half-life of lithium-12
12 nanoseconds – mean lifetime of a charged K meson^[6]
20–40 nanoseconds – time of fusion reaction in a hydrogen bomb
30 nanoseconds – half-life of carbon-21
77 nanoseconds – a sixth (a 60th of a 60th of a 60th of a 60th of a second)
100 nanoseconds – cycle time for frequency 10 MHz, radio wavelength 30 m (shortwave)
294.4 nanoseconds – half-life of polonium-212^[7]
333 nanoseconds – cycle time of highest medium wave radio frequency, 3 MHz
500 nanoseconds – T1 time of Josephson phase qubit (see also Qubit) as of May 2005
1000 nanoseconds – one microsecond

References

Notes

^ By definition of the "foot" as exactly 1/3 yards, and of the international yard as "exactly 0.9144 metres", and of the metre (SI unit) defined by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures as the "length of the path traveled by light in vacuum during a time interval of 1/299792458 of a second". The time taken by light to travel 1 foot in vacuum is therefore (1/299792458) × (0.9144/3) seconds, or 1.016703362164 nanoseconds.

Citations

^ "time package - time - Go Packages". pkg.go.dev. Retrieved 2025-01-29.
^ "It's Go Time on Linux". The Cloudflare Blog. Archived from the original on 2024-10-05. Retrieved 2025-01-29. time.Now() now gets real nanosecond resolution on supported systems
^ "Comprehensive Guide to Dates and Times in Go". Boot.dev Blog. 2021-05-17. Retrieved 2025-01-29. The default time.Time type represents an instant in time with nanosecond precision
^ "Official BIPM definition of the metre". BIPM. Archived from the original on 2003-10-29. Retrieved 2008-09-22.
^ Philips Semiconductors. "74HC-T-U-User-Guide" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2022-10-09.
^ Beringer, J. "K^±" (PDF). pdg.lbl.gov.
^ Kondev, F. G.; Wang, M.; Huang, W. J.; Naimi, S.; Audi, G. (2021). "The NUBASE2020 evaluation of nuclear properties" (PDF). Chinese Physics C. 45 (3): 030001. doi:10.1088/1674-1137/abddae.

External links

Visual representation of a nanosecond Grace Hopper explains the nanosecond

[4] By definition of the "foot" as exactly 1/3 yards, and of the international yard as "exactly 0.9144 metres", and of the metre (SI unit) defined by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures as the "length of the path traveled by light in vacuum during a time interval of 1/299792458 of a second". The time taken by light to travel 1 foot in vacuum is therefore (1/299792458) × (0.9144/3) seconds, or 1.016703362164 nanoseconds.

[1] "time package - time - Go Packages". pkg.go.dev. Retrieved 2025-01-29.

[2] "It's Go Time on Linux". The Cloudflare Blog. Archived from the original on 2024-10-05. Retrieved 2025-01-29. time.Now() now gets real nanosecond resolution on supported systems

[3] "Comprehensive Guide to Dates and Times in Go". Boot.dev Blog. 2021-05-17. Retrieved 2025-01-29. The default time.Time type represents an instant in time with nanosecond precision

[BIPM21-5] "Official BIPM definition of the metre". BIPM. Archived from the original on 2003-10-29. Retrieved 2008-09-22.

[6] Philips Semiconductors. "74HC-T-U-User-Guide" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2022-10-09.

[7] Beringer, J. "K^±" (PDF). pdg.lbl.gov.

[NUBASE2020-8] Kondev, F. G.; Wang, M.; Huang, W. J.; Naimi, S.; Audi, G. (2021). "The NUBASE2020 evaluation of nuclear properties" (PDF). Chinese Physics C. 45 (3): 030001. doi:10.1088/1674-1137/abddae.

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v t e Orders of magnitude of time
by powers of ten
Negative powers	<1 attosecond attosecond femtosecond picosecond nanosecond microsecond millisecond
Positive powers	second kilosecond megasecond gigasecond terasecond and longer

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