Deep into a Microprocessor

[Tom Narwid]

Vintage AMD Opteron Microprocessor (circa 2006)

 

[AlanLichty]

Makes a fun abstract.

 

[Ben Egbert]

Where do you plug in the valve?

 

[Ken Rennie]

I find this very interesting Tom. I worked for IBM as an engineer in the early 70's and at that time they were the largest manufacturer of integrated circuits in the world. I remember breaking one open to have a look. The degree of integration was slight with approx 10 elements per chip and the circuitry could be seen and understood with the naked eye. The technology was RTL a precursor of TTL which in its turn made way for CMOS which is still current today. Ken

 

[Jameel Hyder]

Nice abstract and interesting to see the details. With todays 7nm (and soon even smaller) geometries, one will need crazy amount of magnification to see this level of detail.

 

[Tom Narwid]

Nice abstract and interesting to see the details. With todays 7nm (and soon even smaller) geometries, one will need crazy amount of magnification to see this level of detail.

I believe you are right Jameel. To get to any size detail one will need to spend $2000-4000 for an objective if they even make one. A scanning electron microscope!!!!

 

[Tom Narwid]

I find this very interesting Tom. I worked for IBM as an engineer in the early 70's and at that time they were the largest manufacturer of integrated circuits in the world. I remember breaking one open to have a look. The degree of integration was slight with approx 10 elements per chip and the circuitry could be seen and understood with the naked eye. The technology was RTL a precursor of TTL which in its turn made way for CMOS which is still current today. Ken

Hey Ken. Thanks for your comment. If you have not seen the video I posted yet here is the YouTube url:

Take a look there are more images there.

 

[JimFox]

Hey Tom,

This is so cool, very interesting to see. How much is this magnified?

 

[Tom Narwid]

Hey Tom,

This is so cool, very interesting to see. How much is this magnified?

500-600x

 

[Douglas Sherman]

That is a beauty, Tom.

 

[David S]

Wow look at all that 1mb worth of Cache !