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Silicon Artwork
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."
I wonder if current systems have a similar EULA?
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
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
Uh-oh, looks like the Los Alamos NHMFL at FSU has been taken down... is that considered an act of terrorism?!?
I prefer my 'artwork' to be natural, not silicon enhanced.
I don't have a sig...Do you??
I prefer my artwork to be of Silicone, rather than Silicon. First of all, you don't need a microscope to appreciate it. Secondly, depending on where you live, you can appreciate it freely (and possibly even openly) on the beach or even in a gentleman's club up-close!
Karma: NaN
Here
mirror
The mirror mostly works. Some of the images are broken.
The best chip "easter egg" I've seen was on the Intel P3 die which said something like "Microsoft Sucks" on it. The engineer responsible was fired if I remember correctly.
When all else fails, run.
Reminds me of those Intel engineers who got canned for putting bill sux on the Pentium microchip. ;)
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Do I get Obesessive Whiny Nerd With No Life bragging rights? Hemos posted this five years ago. That seems like it ought to be well over the statute of limitations, though...
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Someone needs to cut the "Bush Asshole Mosaic" into some new military silicon... Let's put that money to good use!
Have mercy, this poor server is a little Wintel box running IIS 5 on Win2k!
I'm on FSU's campus in my office and through our LAN can't BARELY even reach the poor piece of fried silicon art we're creating on that machine right now! Perhaps they'll scan the smoldering processor from that box soon and show us a big /. image etched right on it ;)
-Joe
If we're all god's children, what's so special about Jesus? - Jimmy Carr
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.)
When my dad was getting his PhD at VA Tech (he finished up in '91 or '92 I think), one of the guys in his lab group was Bill Bender. I don't recall exactly what his field of expertise was, but I think it involved lasers. And apparently also making his own circuits. He had a maginified pic of one up at his desk and his "signature" mark on them was a bicycle. He was big into triathlons, so the bike was a reference to that I suppose.
IIRC, one of my favorite books, Acts of the Apostles also references the concept that there is usually some sort of artwork on chips, put there by the designers.
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
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.