4 ms·
Die shots of as many CPUs and other interesting chips as possible
- roflmaostc 1y agoSomeone should sponsor that guy a gigapixel microscope such as those https://gallery.ramonaoptics.com/gallery/viewer/42009871001#zoom=1.5948&x=0.4452974490317537&y=0.3159754312973949 https://gallery.ramonaoptics.com/gallery/viewer/42009871001#...
- 7222aafdcf68cfe 1y agoIf you're into this, and enjoy more details, many more get published weekly on Mastodon under the #nakeddiefriday tag - https://infosec.exchange/tags/nakeddiefriday https://infosec.exchange/tags/nakeddiefriday
- rft 1y agoAnother great resource is this site: https://misdake.github.io/ChipAnnotationViewer/?map=Zeppelin&commentId=593049935 https://misdake.github.io/ChipAnnotationViewer/?map=Zeppelin... It has a Google Maps like interface for exploring die shots and even some annotated versions of chips.
- ttoinou 1y agoReminds me of Koooooooyanisqatsi
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- 7373737373 1y agoSee also: https://siliconpr0n.org/ https://siliconpr0n.org/
- mrcsharp 1y agoI'm always fascinated by how brilliant us humans can be. So much so that we can put billions of transistors in very small spaces and in complex structures while also mass producing it. I highly recommend watching this video about lithography and the machine that makes it all possible [1]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2482h_TNwg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2482h_TNwg
- solarwindy 1y agoOutstanding video, thank you. No wonder this took months’ worth of research and animation to make.
- Velocifyer 1y agoBranch Education makes good videos.
- atonse 1y agoNever heard of this channel. I was mesmerized by this video, thanks. But I have to get back to Adulting for now.
- chrisgarand 1y agoOn the less serious side I like EvilmonkeyzDesignz youtube shorts. They generally looks for the doodles on older chips, but also looks at MEMs devices as well: https://www.youtube.com/@EvilmonkeyzDesignz https://www.youtube.com/@EvilmonkeyzDesignz They would definitely be able to add to the list (they have a video of 100 chips for their 100k subscriber mark).
- mrcsharp 1y agoI only had a quick skim through their videos tab and almost every video is something I'd watch. Thanks for sharing. Looks like I have a fun evening ahead.
- guerrilla 1y agoWhich one of the CPUs do you think looks the cleanest, aesthetically? The first Alpha looks rather chaotic, while the Samsung Alpha looks very uniform. That TI PA-7000 FPC looks like chaos. I think the two PowerPCs look the best, which is what I'd expect too. Well, actually I'd expect some of the other RISC to look simpler too...
- gblargg 1y agoI was also fixed on PowerPC after noticing how regular the dies were. Cache on the right, then what looks like bank after bank of fairly uniform control logic. It's almost like they decided on a general structure and fit everything into this, rather than letting things organically form as needed.
- leptons 1y ago>That TI PA-7000 FPC looks like chaos I think it looks very well structured compared to the Soviet KM1801VM2 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Birdman86#/media/File:Soviet_KM1801VM2_die.JPG https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Birdman86#/media/Fil...
- potato-peeler 1y agoAre there any shots of audio amplifiers?
- phkahler 1y ago>> Are there any shots of audio amplifiers? https://www.righto.com/2020/06/reverse-engineering-and-comparing-two.html https://www.righto.com/2020/06/reverse-engineering-and-compa... https://www.righto.com/2019/02/op-amp-on-moon-reverse-engineering.html https://www.righto.com/2019/02/op-amp-on-moon-reverse-engine... https://www.righto.com/2018/06/silicon-die-analysis-op-amp-with.html https://www.righto.com/2018/06/silicon-die-analysis-op-amp-w...
- potato-peeler 1y agoRealistically, are these enough to replicate the chips?
- dfox 1y agoMostly no. You do not see the lower layers and for anything sub 1um or so the resolution is too poor anyway.
- pbw 1y agoTo capture the individual transistors on a modern CPU, you'd need an image tens of terabytes in size, and it'd have to be captured by an electron microscope, not an optical image. And even that wouldn't let you see all the layers. Some of the very old CPUs, I'm not sure what resolution would be required.
- dan_hawkins 1y agoAbsolutely not. It's like opening a hood of your car, taking picture of what you see and then try to build replica of the engine based on that.
- anyfoo 1y agoA few early CPUs (famously including the 6502) were fully reverse engineered through "ordinary" die photos, and they even have gate-level simulators now where you can basically see the individual transistors switching: http://www.visual6502.org http://www.visual6502.org I don't know if that's still near feasible for an 8088 or 8086. Anything past that, almost certainly not. Anything modern, absolutely not.
- intrasight 1y agoNice I have on my desk the book "State of the Art" by Stan Augarten. It shows the progression of transistors and integrated circuits from conception through 1983. The book was one of the inspirations for me to become an electrical engineer. My older brother loaned me a copy of it when it was published in 1983.
- Sweepi 1y agosee also: https://www.flickr.com/photos/130561288@N04/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/130561288@N04/ (yes, afaik flickr is still their main/only homepage except for Twitter: https://xcancel.com/fritzchensfritz https://xcancel.com/fritzchensfritz)
- hyperbrainer 1y agoI do not know enough to analyse these chips in any meaninful way, but is there a trend or cool feature to be seen across?
- sllabres 1y agoA nice collection of die shots is on Fritzchens Fritz [1] on flickr [1] https://www.flickr.com/photos/130561288@N04/albums/72157650403404920/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/130561288@N04/albums/721576504...
- atannen 1y agosee also https://wikichip.org/ https://wikichip.org/
- foz 1y agoI love these. The https://www.youtube.com/@EvilmonkeyzDesignz https://www.youtube.com/@EvilmonkeyzDesignz channel does some wonderful explorations of chips with high powered microscopes, finding easter eggs and graphics left by designers. So much fun.
- avipars 1y agoHis videos are really fun!
- mk89 1y agoHow can someone explain this to a kid? Is there somewhere an even more simplified version than Arduino or similar to show how all these things actually work? I know arduino is not a cpu, but overall, how these things work together, would be great to see/show. I don't expect to show how electrons move :) I mean, some model, a toy or so, that shows how these things work. I remember it only from books/specs, but even there, at a certain point there are "limits" :)
- thessalchips 1y agoI‘m teaching a course on computer architecture at my university and there are these model processors called MUx (MU0-7) that explain how a CPU works from the ground up. I‘m not aware of any toys (my students keep asking me about that as well), but I wrote an interactive visualizer that illustrates the simplest processor and how data moves through it: https://pascalbormann.de/mu-vis/ https://pascalbormann.de/mu-vis/ Not mobile friendly unfortunately and maybe a bit too advanced for kids, but it could be a starting point. The code is here if you want to build on it: https://github.com/Mortano/mu0-visualization https://github.com/Mortano/mu0-visualization
- thabit 1y agoA breadboard CPU would be a good "toy" no?
- thessalchips 1y agoTrue but to do anything interesting you do need a whole bunch of wires and components, even for an 8-bit CPU. Maybe it is a good start to instead combine gates to do some useful work. People are also building CPUs in Minecraft, that should get kids engaged :)
- jjk7 1y agoThat's how I was taught, build up a CPU using TTL logic chips. Even just starting with the building blocks is useful, like build a flip-flop
- ge96 1y agoWould be interesting if all of a sudden, a paradigm shift, all he chips are designed as concentric rings for some reason
- taraindara 1y agoImagine someone quietly developing, and then suddenly releasing a modern chip with this kind of design in mind. They’d get a lot of publicity just for being different. And the process would be their own, so if anyone likes it, or there turns out to be any benefits to the design, it would be a while until someone replicates it.
- anyfoo 1y agoMy feeling is that this would make bin packing on a silicon wafer less optimal?
- techsystems 1y agoVery nice collection, thanks for the share