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From Silicon To Microprocessors
prostoalex writes "Jim Turley from Embedded Systems Programming magazine answers the question of where microprocessors come from. While the public generally knows about the silicon and microprocessor vendors, few can describe the process of turning the beach sand into the latest and greatest several-hundred-dollars-worth CPU."
A knowledge of history is almost always a Good Thing. I wonder how many programmers have never heard of Charles Babbage? ("Analytical Engine? What?") You should at least have a decent knowledge of the history of your craft. Call me old-fashioned, but my love of computer science isn't limited by EnterpriseJavaBeans and BiCapitalizedMumboJumbo and whatever buzzword happens to be out today. There's more to it than that.
I have discovered a truly marvelous
They *do* mention the effects that this has on one's brain - especially with metric conversion. From the article:
Raw silicon is grown into crystal ingots, which look like giant silver bolognas. Then it's sliced into exceptionally thin wafers about 6 to 8 inches (200 to 300mm) across
Ummm... yeah...
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
Smaller dies can also mean a much cheaper package with less pins.
Who do you get to be an expert to tell you something's not obvious? The least insightful person you can find? -J Roberts
Beg pardon? Seems for the last 20 years processors have been gaining pins like some adherence to Moore's law. Seen the Athlon 64's lately? Didn't the 6502, 8086 and z80 processors have like 40 pins? I can't see a correllation between pins and die size.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
A huge amount. Many embedded systems have real-time requirements, tight memory-space limitations, and a much lower tolerance for failure than desktop systems. If you're talking about a comsumer embedded device (e.g. a cellphone), you have to deal with power management as well. There are multiple operating systems to choose from, several types of processor architectures (including the Harvard Archirtecture typified by Intel's old 8051 family that has entirely separate memory spaces for instructions and data), and several buses specific to embedded systems work.
Why should this matter? There are several embedded systems in your car, and I'm sure you'd be mightily ticked if your car just stopped working randomly. On a more mundane level, what about programmable thermostats or the security card readers where you go to work? That's not to mention the mission-critical embedded systems in aircraft and medical devices.
More to the point, why are humans required at all in the manufacturing process. I would expect the entire manufacturing and testing process, from sand to plastic-encased chip, to be automated enough that people in bunny suits should not be needed. Maybe they are needed to replace the robots and fill up the supplies, but other than that, what do they do?
It doesn't make sense. For one thing, they don't even expose the entire mask at once - most machines do it in "stripes", after the original data was "fractured" (I work on the CATS fracture software). For another, it left out the problems involved in making the mask itself - one glitch, and you've got a $5000 perfectly flat glass paperweight. Making a mask to cover the whole area multiplies those problems.
"Where do microprocessors come from, Daddy?" That's an awkward question we all must answer at some stage in our careers. What mysterious process converts elemental silicon into elemental forces like Intel's Itanium or Motorola's PowerPC? Let us explore the wonder that is semiconductor creation.
Shouldn't that include IBM?
Two words: VDD pins.
Who do you get to be an expert to tell you something's not obvious? The least insightful person you can find? -J Roberts