ICs and CPUs internal view

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What's really interesting,is to think that everyone of us is using one of those chips right now to read what you wrote,and what I am writing right now.
 
maynman1751 said:
That is absolutely amazing! 8) How in the H do they 'produce' all of that micro(nano) circuitry? :shock:
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsi1MWsyJYU

http://video.designworldonline.com/video/integrated-circuit-manufacturing-process-stages.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_circuit

http://www.madehow.com/Volume-2/Integrated-Circuit.html

http://rel.intersil.com/docs/lexicon/manufacture.html

Etc., Etc., Etc.
 
goldsilverpro said:
maynman1751 said:
That is absolutely amazing! 8) How in the H do they 'produce' all of that micro(nano) circuitry? :shock:
Click to expand...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsi1MWsyJYU

http://video.designworldonline.com/video/integrated-circuit-manufacturing-process-stages.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_circuit

http://www.madehow.com/Volume-2/Integrated-Circuit.html

http://rel.intersil.com/docs/lexicon/manufacture.html

Etc., Etc., Etc.
Click to expand...

Thanks Chris! That was somewhat of a rhetorical question on my part. I just find it astonishing that there are people that have the intellect and the capacity to figure these things out. It sort of makes me feel insignificant in the scheme of things. (No cracks here!) And to think that we are actually just in the infant stages of this technology.
 
Thanks Chris! That was somewhat of a rhetorical question on my part. I just find it astonishing that there are people that have the intellect and the capacity to figure these things out. It sort of makes me feel insignificant in the scheme of things. (No cracks here!) And to think that we are actually just in the infant stages of this technology.
Click to expand...

I knew it was rhetorical. I've gotten into the habit of generally directing my posts to the entire forum instead of the person I'm responding to and, sometimes, through misunderstanding, that gets me into trouble.


In the early 70s, I spent a lot of time troubleshooting plating systems in a huge company that made ICs and had the world's largest reducing camera. I'm thinking it weighted 2 tons. It had a huge bellows on it and it hung from the ceiling. The original artwork for the different chip masks might be as large as 6' x 6'. They photographed that and then reduced it to the size of the chip. Except for the computerization, robots, and other equipment, it's basically the same today, as seen on the links I provided.

In the early 70s, they got about 10,000 components on a chip (or, was it per square inch? - I can't remember which). Today, there are literally several billion. I think that Moore's Law, which says that the number of components (amount of integration) doubles every 18 months (due to technology), has generally held true. The technology in IC manufacturing is generally freely shared through journals, etc. Advancement is generally made in little spurts, here and there, by the millions (probably) of engineers and technicians that make chips.

I once was lucky enough to spend a full day in the Penn State IC lab. I even got to make chips.

In the 70s, when a large chip was first made, it could have a 98% total reject rate in all stages of fallout, from the bare chip to after it is packaged (lots of scrap!). After making a chip for awhile, the reject rate might only be 2%.
 
Chris,
That's really remarkable what they are able to do at the Universities of today. In 1986 when I was at Penn State getting my second degree, I actually was controlling the nuclear reactor they have on site. You can do things with a research reactor that are unfathomable with a commercial reactor. I believe their research reactor was rated for something like 1 megawatt, they could actually "pulse" it at up to something like 2000 megawatts for an instant. Unlike commercial reactors, it is not in an enclosed steel cylinder, but is what is called a swimming pool reactor where the core is visible to the people in the area. When pulsed, it lit up the room like an explosion of sunshine. It was actually very beautiful. Aint technology wonderful?
 

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