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Silicon Artwork

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the back-from-the-beyond dept.

TeachingMachines writes "Photomicrographs are photographs taken through a microscope. A site called Molecular Expressions hosts a vast collection of photomicrographs, arranged in galleries. One gallery of interest is called the Silicon Zoo. While using a microscope to examine the silicon surfaces of processors and whatnot, investigators stumbled upon some renaissance artwork, dire warnings, and even some advertising that may be etched into your computer's silicon. Douglas Adams would have been happy to find this one. (from the Silicon Scriptures collection). This "EULA" probably has lawyers jumping for joy. An image on this page will give you a rough idea of how big the artwork actually is."

3 of 118 comments (clear)

  1. Sadly you wont see many more of these ... by taniwha · · Score: 2, Interesting

    those are from the days when chips had 1 or 2 layers of metal on them. These days it's more normal to put power and ground planes on the top hiding all the pretty stuff underneath

  2. My mom remembers Pepsi at a nickle by kfg · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I'm from the "Dime Generation" myself.

    On the other hand I also remember what we got payed in those days. Comes to about the same thing; and we didn't have 2 litre bottles for a buck.

    You had to pull the bottle out of the machine just right too, or you lost your dime. I always hated that. Or the cup machines, you had to watch to make sure the cup came down properly or you just watched your soda spray all over the place.

    Ah the good old days, immortalized in invisible etchings.

    "Hey sweet thing, wanna seem my etchings? Bring your scanning electron microscope over sometime."

    Somehow that just doesn't sound right.

    KFG

    (P.S. For those that haven't seen the pages this post is not offtopic.)

  3. better page.. by glassesmonkey · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The silicon zoo page is so old and busted.

    Here's a dose of new hotness: Chipworks

    How these guys can reverse engineer in the day of DCMA astounds me. Speaking of greyscale images are interesting.. And I'll hint people towards looking at a Transmeta chip.