Computer Chips Exploding for Science

Judebert writes "While some may argue that any modern processor without a heat sink already exhibits this behavior, UCSD chemists have discovered that properly doped computer chips are actually explosive. Standard techniques are used, and they function just like normal computer chips. Better yet, they burn clean, making them ideal for chemical analysis. The article sites other uses, such as micromachine propulsion and military explosives, but I imagine this woudl make for the ultimate in copy protection, as well: "Unauthorized copy detected. This system will self-destruct in 10... 9..." Science Daily also has a copy."

Comments

Watch out for that pentium bug!

[tunah]

This system will self-destruct in 10... 9... 8...

7... 6... 5... 4... 3... 2... 1... 0.00000000198

Computer Manufacturers

[The Great Wakka]

*boof*
Customer: My computer exploded!
Tech Support: Guess you have to get a new one.
Customer: Yeah! Here's $1000 for a new one!

Unethical computer manufacturers could get a lot of money out of this. And 1337 HAX0rZ can blow up people's computers. :D I bet that this is a farily silly technology anyway!

Eeesh

[Anonymous Coward]

Reminds me of the time my phone line got hit by lightning.. I'd like to also state that all the little chips on modems tend to explode quite nicely too.

Re:Eeesh

[heliocentric]

Especially the ones with phone jacks (if you're stuck with dialup).

It's not just for dialup, DSL comes over phone lines thus surge protecting that stuff is also a good idea. If you have cable modem, then you can also surge protect that (probably a good idea to surge protect your cable TV line even if you don't have a cable modem). Plus, you should surge protect ethernet (BP280s as well as others have this) around servers and if you're sharing a LAN maybe with a neighbor or something like that.

Geeks must be terrorists

[yahwey]

As if airline restrictions weren't bad enough already, now my laptop will surely be considered a bomb!

flying

[10e 999]

Great. Now we're going to have to comletely dismantle laptops, game boys, and talking Barney dolls before we are allowed to board flights.

Seriously, what are the possibilities of using this to cause life threatening explosions?

Re:flying

[nurightshu]

Well, on its own the chip's explosion would almost certainly not be life-threatening. However, you could theoretically use this as a catalyst to detonate a high-order explosive.

Your laptops should be safe on airlines, folks. Pretty much the only way to make this dangerous would be to wrap a brick of Semtex around it (which the airports already have sniffer-dogs to detect), or build a chip so large that it releases enough energy to do serious damage. Explaining a laptop the size of a blackboard would be difficult, I think.

"No really, it's for doing some serious number-crunching..."

Re:flying

[Colin Bayer]

Explaining a laptop the size of a blackboard would be difficult, I think.

"I swear, officer, it's my
iBook with 14' screen!"

damn!

[Phexro]

and i thought this was just bad trashy journalism.

so... when does slashdot get a bat boy story icon?

Re:damn!

[BadDoggie]

For the stileproject and porn pop-up cowards, the direct link is http://static.stileproject.com/rnd/img/pom5.jpg. It's a scan of a Weekly World News item some time ago with the headline, "Hackers Can Turn Your Home Computer Into a BOMB!"

The article starts out thusly:

Washington -- Right now, computer hackers have the ability to turn your home computer into a bomb and blow you to Kingdom Come -- and they can do it anonymously from thousands of miles away!

Experts say the recent "break-ins" that paralyzed Amazon.com, Buy.com and eBay websites are tame compared to what will happen in the near future.

It only gets better from there.

For the uninitiated, WWN is THE cheesiest, worst supermarket tabloid ever. It's always good for a laugh or two, and sometimes I miss it here in Europe. It makes the Sun and the National Enquirer both look like the pinnacles of objective and researched journalism. Lots of stories on two-headed cyclops cannibal babies with 280 IQs and the ability to channel Nostradamus.

woof.

Don't bother modding this. It ain't funnier than the parent, it ain't that informative and there's enough other comments out there more deserving of your mod points. Oh, and I'm capped. And 25% of my last 24 comments are already Score:5.

Survey method biased

[tunah]

"Most people are familiar with silicon as the material that's used in computer chips for circuits"

What, judging by the fact that intel.com gets more hits than baywatch.com?

Re:Survey method biased

[jorbettis]

That's silicone, the polymer, not silicon, the metalloid.

Star Trekkin...

[e5z8652]

Science finally explains all those years of exploding consoles in Star Trek!

Re:Star Trekkin...

[minusthink]

but it makes the question of why data's head never exploded all the more mysterious.

Re:Star Trekkin...

[Lars T.]

Because he's got a positronic brain, no silicon inside.

Explosion?

[alleria]

The article says that the explosion might be useful for analysing chemicals in-field, which I can see, even if explosions are fairly uncontrolled, but what's this with 'as a power source?'

I agree that things like modern engines work by having mini explosions that push pistons up/down etc., but *in general* explosions are not a very efficient way to power things. Witness the fact that the human body does not burn/explode glucose, but rather goes through aerobic respiration to oxidize it.

So, um, how exactly does this stuff get used in controlled explosions as a continuous power source?

Re:Explosion?

[savage_panda]

if only we can harness the power of intestinal gases within the human body. It could be a renewable source of energy. It could power our cars and homes, and make green house gas a thing of the past..

You too can do your part to save the environment by eating a can of beans a night.

Terrorist threat?

[AnimeFreak]

You know, with more and more pocket PCs out there, airplanes are at risk.

Two pen taps and the plane would go boom.

I think the government should regulate everything from Cell phones to Computers. Make it so everytime you go buy electronics, you must show your ID in order to purchase it; then interrogate the person if they don't have their card on them. :)

Re:Terrorist threat?

[BlueUnderwear]

Yes, of course they would. The same way that they put explosives in shoes. "They" being of course the terrorists.

practical uses

[xah]

Military agencies can put a "blasting cap" on microchips that will be going into hostile territory. For example, a computer on board an attack airplane. If the airplane is ever downed in enemy territory, a remote electronic signal can be transmitted to light up all the silicon on the plane. As long as there is enough back-up battery charge to send the right voltage, there would be no need to send in a second plane or commando group to destroy the sensitive, grounded plane.

Energy source? The article said it produced a clean burning flame. Could the reaction be slowed down? Could we produce cheap energy from plentiful silicon?

Re:Imagine a Beowulf Cluster of THOSE!

[e1en0r]

That gives a whole new meaning to the term "cluster bomb".

Actually...

[gnovos]

I COULD see somone shipping a new media device that burns itself after being played X times... This *is* the ultimate copy protection scheme.

Ouch

[EggplantMan]

This gives a whole new meaning to 'fatal error'.

No, No, Don't Let Them Hear You!

[billstewart]

Shhhh, be vewwwwwy quiet!

Over the years we've had to have laptops sent through the Xray machines in our bags, taken out of our bags and sent through on the conveyor by themselves, back in the bags but vertical so they don't mask other things, taken out and turned on, taken out and explained that this model doesn't use batteries so you can only turn it on if you can plug it in, and to do that you'll need to unplug their X-Ray machine because there aren't any outlets nearby, and they're making you take off your hats, coats, pagers, cellphones, radios, palmpilots, shoes, eyeglasses, belts, piercings, bluejeans with copper rivets in them, artificial hip joints, metal-braced lingerie, car keys, buttons with comments about government harassment, and shiny things in general.

I've had people at San Jose Airport ask me if my bag had a laptop in it - like DUUHHHH - this is San Jose, is there anybody here carrying a bag that *doesn't* have a laptop in it? If they want to ask if I've got an interesting laptop, fine :-) They don't seem to have figured out laser pointers yet... But if they even HEAR about exploding microprocessors, it won't be possible to travel at all.

At least I didn't have a laptop with me the time I was bringing my nephews a KG of Silly Putty in clear baggies with 500g each :-)

Re:No, No, Don't Let Them Hear You!

[ImaLamer]

-17 Redundant [again]

no, i don't have mod points... so I just want to let these people know they aren't reading the second or third comment down from the story.

Re:Been there...

[tjb]

Heh. Done that before.

I had to remove a flash chip from a socket, but couldn't find the right tool, so I grabbed an 8 inch soldering pick (the kind that look like dentists tools) and proceeded to lift the flash. Unbeknownst to me, I bridged the tool to the unrectified (110V AC) power supply exposed at the switch of my dev board.

Zap! Flash! Bang!

Tossed my sorry ass about three feet backwards while the flash chip burst into flames and jumped about a foot into the air :) After recovering, I took a look at the chip and the packaging was completely gutted in the middle where (presumably) the (ex-)die was.

Oops :)

Tim

It isn't that bad....

[necama]

The silicon that they're talking about here is porous silicon, which has properties that are massively different than the bulk crystal. Current study on the material has found that it is an excellent emitter of both light and electrons.

The primary problem with this material is nobody understands it either chemically or physically. We have a list of stuff you can do with it, but no model to predict other effects.

This is pretty cool, though....

Re:Magic?

[mselmeci]

You are correct; this does exist. It can be found in the Jargon File, Appendix A (blockquoted here, you're welcome).

A Story About `Magic'

Some years ago, I (GLS) was snooping around in the cabinets that housed the MIT AI Lab's PDP-10, and noticed a little switch glued to the frame of one cabinet. It was obviously a homebrew job, added by one of the lab's hardware hackers (no one knows who).

You don't touch an unknown switch on a computer without knowing what it does, because you might crash the computer. The switch was labeled in a most unhelpful way. It had two positions, and scrawled in pencil on the metal switch body were the words `magic' and `more magic'. The switch was in the `more magic' position.

I called another hacker over to look at it. He had never seen the switch before either. Closer examination revealed that the switch had only one wire running to it! The other end of the wire did disappear into the maze of wires inside the computer, but it's a basic fact of electricity that a switch can't do anything unless there are two wires connected to it. This switch had a wire connected on one side and no wire on its other side.

It was clear that this switch was someone's idea of a silly joke. Convinced by our reasoning that the switch was inoperative, we flipped it. The computer instantly crashed.

Imagine our utter astonishment. We wrote it off as coincidence, but nevertheless restored the switch to the `more magic' position before reviving the computer.

A year later, I told this story to yet another hacker, David Moon as I recall. He clearly doubted my sanity, or suspected me of a supernatural belief in the power of this switch, or perhaps thought I was fooling him with a bogus saga. To prove it to him, I showed him the very switch, still glued to the cabinet frame with only one wire connected to it, still in the `more magic' position. We scrutinized the switch and its lone connection, and found that the other end of the wire, though connected to the computer wiring, was connected to a ground pin. That clearly made the switch doubly useless: not only was it electrically nonoperative, but it was connected to a place that couldn't affect anything anyway. So we flipped the switch.

The computer promptly crashed.

This time we ran for Richard Greenblatt, a long-time MIT hacker, who was close at hand. He had never noticed the switch before, either. He inspected it, concluded it was useless, got some diagonal cutters and diked it out. We then revived the computer and it has run fine ever since.

We still don't know how the switch crashed the machine. There is a theory that some circuit near the ground pin was marginal, and flipping the switch changed the electrical capacitance enough to upset the circuit as millionth-of-a-second pulses went through it. But we'll never know for sure; all we can really say is that the switch was magic.

I still have that switch in my basement. Maybe I'm silly, but I usually keep it set on `more magic'.

1994: Another explanation of this story has since been offered. Note that the switch body was metal. Suppose that the non-connected side of the switch was connected to the switch body (usually the body is connected to a separate earth lug, but there are exceptions). The body is connected to the computer case, which is, presumably, grounded. Now the circuit ground within the machine isn't necessarily at the same potential as the case ground, so flipping the switch connected the circuit ground to the case ground, causing a voltage drop/jump which reset the machine. This was probably discovered by someone who found out the hard way that there was a potential difference between the two, and who then wired in the switch as a joke.

READ THE FUCKING ARTICLE

[Have Blue]

This is not about exploding computer chips. This is about using the microlithography techniques and materials (silicon) from the chip industry to make electronically controlled micro-explosives. There is nothing here about making existing chips explode.

military uses

[Lumpy]

What a perfect thing for the military....

abandon the helicopter,aircraft,tank,spy vehicle? on the way out hit the destruct button... first the eeproms and all circuts explode then the vehicle leaving nothing behind for the enemy to reverse engineer...

Or better yet... instead of the musical greeting card.... the maiming greeting card.... for your ex's and last employer....

Oh wait... that's illegal... nevermind.

Vaporware

[BigBadVoodooDaddy]

This is the first vaporware product that is literal!

Re:(im)practical uses

[Ldir]

Wonder if this might also be used as a cyber-warfare mechanism. Ever hear the rumors/myths about the backdoor in printers, computers, whatever, exported to foreign countries? The story goes that the U.S. military can send a special code, a virus of sorts, that activates the backdoor and disables the equipment.

Now imagine building silicon explosives into export equipment. Some fellow sitting back at CIA HQ launches Son of SirCam - within 12 hours, desktops all over Iraq are blowing up.

The ultimate Denial of Service attack.

They already do that.

[El Camino SS]

I am a news photographer... one afternoon when a B-1 bomber went down in a Kentucky cow field, the plane exploded into tiny, tiny shreds. Thankfully, the pilot and the crew ejected and were unharmed. Unfortunately, several cows didn't make it.

One of the most interesting moments that followed in the media cavalcade happened a day later. A man drove out of the woods with a pickup and dropped off a large, man-sized bent piece of metal, which according to the DoD was the larest piece of the plane left. It was the heavy steel dash of the cockpit that holds the hundreds of tiny dials the pilots read. No dials, but a lot of steel.
...other than that, I looked for probably 45 minutes with a pair of binoculars at the impact point, and the largest piece I ever saw was a tire. The B-1 is one helluva big plane. It blows up automatically in a crash... no external signal necessary.

Trust me, the DoD does its homework when it comes to keeping its avionics secret.

I have no doubt in my mind that our plane that got captured in China revealed as little as possible to the Chinese Gov't. I realistically believe that they learned very little from taking that plane apart. They certainly didn't get any software to run the equipment, that is for sure. And the software is the real heart of any surveilance system.

In answer to making microchips explode, I would believe there are much better, more certain ways of destroying microprocessors and leave no readable trace.

Your idea has good merit for tiny processors or espionage equipment, that isn't practical for carrying its own destruct. Its also a great idea for sabotage.

Re:They already do that.

[Cato the Elder]

I know that one company I used to work for had a military contract and one of the items was to garuntee that the data containing parts of the system would be completely melted by X degress at temperature Y. I believe they did something like put thermite and a triggering unit in the case with it.

That, of course, does much more damage than just a chip explosion. I've only seen one exploded chip--the SCSI controller on an MVME2700 (Motorola) blew about a quarter of the area and half the depth out. I was kinda reassured when I looked at my own board and saw that it had a different model chip in that spot. I don't think it could have killed anyone put it certianly could have done some serious damage to an eye if you leaned over to plug the chassis in. (I wish I had the picture handy, put I don't)

Old news

[majcher]

Readers of the finest news source in america have known this all along...

Re:Could this . .

[AnimeFreak]

Well, the next threat is not fire or explosions but actually spinning objects spinning at speeds up to 10,000 RPM.

Hard Drives could become a dangerous issue if we find out they can actually go off their motor and fly out of their casing towards unsuspecting objects, creatures, or people.

Ive seen this before, well almost.....

[CDWert]

Thats funny.

When I was about 12(81 or so) my dad brought me slews of stuff from work to scrap parts off of, LONG story short he took all the lithium batteries on the boards I was given, several had them, their engineer had to pick shards of PCB ut of his arm after he shorted one, (This was beore they had an internal "breaker") ,

A couple of years ago I was short on cash so, I decided to sell my IMSAI , well I went to power it up to test it so I could say, "Working Condition"
Well shit started blowing everywhere, caps going off like firecrackers, kinda makes me wonder whats going to happen when I fire up my 386 in 20 years to show my son :)

Lends a whole new meaning...

[AJWM]

...to the fabled HCF -- Halt and Catch Fire -- opcode.

Martian Technology!

[farrellj]

Finally, we pitiful earthlings can build the Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator!

Lookout Marvin!

ttyl
Farrell

Original Paper

[diegoq]

You can read the original paper in Jan 2002 Advanced Materials.

The abstract is online: Scroll down to 38-41: Explosive Nanocrystalline Porous Silicon and Its Use in Atomic Emission Spectroscopy.
Can't read the full article tho', unless you subscribe...visit your local library and ask for it.

Putting some teeth into Product Activation

[phillymjs]

-----
This copy of Windows has already been activated on another computer. Self-destruct sequence activated.
We hope Hell is where you wanted to go today.

Sincerely,

The Microsoft Windows Team
-----

I can already see my inbox...

[Nathdot]

'This e-mail is sent you as warning from Bill Gates about the new ChipDet computer virus

It is very serious an if not detected can cause your computer chip to explode, which will also explode your computer.

Please forward this on to everybody you know as soon as possible. Remember this is very important."

:)

BSOD...

[ImaLamer]

Really give the term Blue Screen of Death a new meaning.

Computer crashed? Well, you better get the hell out of the room.

The BSOD is always the last thing you see.

Kernel oops? oops, pick your case out of your stomach.

[i know this doesn't work on existing chips... but I couldn't help it]

This is well known...

[n6mod]

...to anyone who's ever put a Ceramic EPROM in the programmer backwards.

Exploding LEDs

[b1t r0t]

Many years ago, in the mid-'80s, back when I had time to do fun things like hook up TTL chips to make LEDs blink, I exploded two LEDs at two different times, by accidently putting 5 volts across them with no current-limiting resistor. The second was a tiny LED, not much bigger than modern surface mount LEDs, but the first time, it was a jumbo (6mm or so) red LED, and the top popped off and bounced off of my glasses. Good thing I wear glasses or it could have gone into my eye, and it would have not been fun explaining that to my mom.

So basically, if you want to try this at home kids, get a few junk jumbo LEDs, a 5 volt non-switching power supply, and if you're smart, a nailboard to pop them from a distance.

Oh yeah, chips too.

[b1t r0t]

I haven't seen this happen much, but a chip can blow its lid too. The best example I have seen is an old Colecovision that must have been hit with a surge from lightning. A third of the chips in that thing had popped their tops, and one capacitor was very singed. But LEDs are still much easier to explode than chips.

Machine language

[TheSHAD0W]

Heh. Finally, the fabled machine code operators can be implemented...

HCF - Halt and Catch Fire
XOI - Execute Operator Immediately

Re:Consequences of this in light of Sept 11th

[BlueUnderwear]

The old "turn on your laptop and prove it works" routine won't exactly be enough to prove that the computer doesn't contain explosive components anymore.

It never actually did. Just put the explosive into the (removable) CD-Rom drive, and by just booting the laptop, the attendant will be none the wiser. Or if he is persisting enough to also test the CD-Rom drive, just make a Laptop battery which is one half battery, and the other half explosive.

I discovered this over 10 years ago.

[seanadams.com]

During my destructive years as a geeky youngster, I discovered that nearly all computer chips are capable of violent explosion. All you need is a screwdriver.

Take your computer's AC cord. Cut off the end that plugs into the computer.

Strip the wires.

Wrap one wire around the computer's chassis somewhere.

Wrap the other wire around a long screwdriver.

Plug it in, and then run the screwdriver up and down all the chips. Stick it in the slots, press it into the power connectors, jam it into the serial port. It's loads of fun - the chips actually explode! Don't wear safety glasses.

Don't just toss that old 286... blow it up first!

Moffet's Ghost

[AgTiger]

Okay, it's now a very dated and obscure reference, but... For fans of the old Airwolf series: Moffet's Ghost would have had a much better time destroying the jetcopter in Season Two if it had been equipped with chips like these. ;-)

Oh, great

[BarefootClown]

Now it's really going to be a bitch to use your laptop on an airplane...

"Did you pack your own bags?"
"Has anybody asked you to carry anything onboard the airplane?"
"Is that laptop running an Intel Pentium95 with ActiveDeath technology?"

Re:Idiot

[ImaLamer]

Read this

Think and read before you post.

Re:Been there...

[blair1q]

Ahem.

That is why they call them Flash chips, you know.

--Blair
"Mulling over 'No Score +1 Bonus' checkbox just now...although 'Post Anonymously' would probably be safer..."