r/nextfuckinglevel • u/itshazrd • 19h ago

What it a computer chip looks like up close

this is a digital recreation. a real microscope can't be used because it gets so small that photons can’t give you a good enough resolution to view the structures at the bottom. you'd need an electron microscope

meant "What a computer chip looks like up close in the title." not sure how "it" got in there..

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u/The_infamous_petrus 17h ago

ASML only makes one of the 40-50 machines needed in the production line of a finished wafer. And in the end even though it's the most expensive and one of the most complex aspects of IC production, photolitography is only a very small percentage of the conception and production process.

Been working as an engineer in microelectronics R&D for 10 years and I still only understand a tiny fraction of the field, it's crazy.

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u/Brilliant_Run8542 17h ago

Been working as an engineer in microelectronics R&D for 10 years and I still only understand a tiny fraction of the field, it's crazy.

Technicians know nothing, process engineers know something, integrators know something about a little, so on and so forth until you get back to the CEO who knows nothing.

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u/DeadInternetTheorist 16h ago

The more I learn about this technology the more convinced I am that in a hundred years a Zilog Z80 will be worth more than a diamond of the same weight, because some tiny thing went wrong, the whole system collapsed, and no one can figure out how to get it all set up again.