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The Making of A Chip

Article from a magazine in 1982.

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daniel
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26 views4 pages

The Making of A Chip

Article from a magazine in 1982.

Uploaded by

daniel
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF or read online on Scribd
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The Making of a CHIP We: ‘made from sand, developed in a darkroom like a photograph, and ‘baked in an oven until i's done? The mighty microchip! Tiny enough to rest on your fingertip (RIGHT), the miorochip has sparked today’s computer revolution. One chip alone houses the components that enable your com: ‘puter to compute, your digital watch to tell time, or your video game to zap aliens. The microchip era began in 1969 when Intl, a California electronics company, figured out how to shrink the main parts ofa calculator onto four tiny silicon chips. Today, a single chip can contain an entire computer that is many times more powerful than the world’ first oigtal computer, the room-sized ENIAC. ‘More than a million passageways are crammed onto the surface of these tiny specks of silicon. Electronic messages zip back and forth over the chip ink | than it takes you to blink. Ta find out how the incredible microchip is made, read on MAPPING THE MICRO Imagine the intricate tangle of roadsin abig city. Thou: sands of streets cross each other in varying patterns Now, look closely at a micro- chip. Itholds as many elec: tronic paths asa city has roads! Designing a chip is a com: plex job. First, a large map of the chip's paths must be made. The map can be done by hand on drafting tables— or on a computer (RIGHT). Each line on the screen is a message channel This colorful map (FAR RIGHT) is a close-up of a chip. design for anew video game 46 CREATING THE ROADWAYS prepare wafers to b 9s that wil trays (RIGHT) and polish they're mirror-smooth mOT0 © CWKKOREA BAKING THE BITS The recipe for making mi- crochips now calls for baking some key ingredients into the waters . The oven where this is done (AGHT) must reach temperatures of over 1,000 degrees. Here, the water's Pathways are paved with mate- rial that will carry electricity Hot gases mixed with metal are used to cover the baking waters, This leaves a thin film cof material along the pathways, Then, tiny pieces—called semiconductors—are embedded in the chips Semiconductors can carry electricity, or they can block it These on-off specks make up the computer's switches CLEANLINESS IS CRUCIAL The smallest piece of cust will seem as large as a boulder to the microscopic roadways of a chip. That's why great care must be taken to keep waters totally clean. Chips are made in sealed, dust- free “clean rooms," where all workers dress like surgeons. Before they leave the room, chips are gently, but thor oughly, washed in special solutions. This worker (LEFT) is moving the wafers by punching instructions into a control box Neither she, nor any othe human, ever actually touches the fragile waters. (continued on page 50) OCTOBER 1983 monde oauMccor ‘SEPARATING EACH CHIP As small as this finished water (RIGHT) Is, it contains 48 individual microchips. Some wafers hold up to 250 chips! Diamond cutters are used to detach chips from waters. The microchips on this wafer are memory chips. They store infor- mation in a computer. Other chips have different jobs, The microprocessor chip, for in: stance, contains the pathways that handle a computer's arith: metic and problem-solving chores. THE END PRODUCT Here is the final produ a ready-made computer compone microchip at its heart (LEFT). The chip is sealed in a protective casing, and is plugged into a compu: ter through the casing's prongs. All the pathways covering the drafting tables and walls have been concen- trated onto this miniscule speck of silicon, a 50

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