Every processor die anyone has photographed and given away

Posted by user_7832 12 hours ago

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Comments

Comment by source99 8 hours ago

I would pay for this as a high quality book. Ideally some info and detail about each processor. Anyone else?

Comment by femto 2 hours ago

I've got a copy of "High Tech: Window to the Future" by Gene Bylinsky. It's got an actual Am8052 die embedded in the front cover. Published in 1986, so it is ancient, but it covers they heyday of microprocessor development, when transistors were big enough to see. It's not a "deep" boo, but it does have plenty of pretty pictures.

https://openlibrary.org/works/OL6322148W/High_Tech?edition=k...

https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/334312859146

Comment by Integer 4 hours ago

https://arenamag.com/silicon

Comment by lindnertim 1 hour ago

I know of some that are freely available but are missing. Has anyone figured out how to get word to them?

Comment by manytimesaway 11 hours ago

That maker list is unusable. It's not sorted in any way, contains duplicates (MOS Technology & Commodore CSG are the same), and would gain from reorganizing some brands (gathering Nintendo CPUs together, for instance).

Comment by josh-wrale 10 hours ago

Have people tried training models to decode these photographs into code?

Comment by amelius 9 hours ago

How would you do that if there's like 60 layers of metal conductors over the silicon substrate?

Comment by josh-wrale 9 hours ago

Fair. I guess it would be necessary to CT scan them, like the Vesuvius Challenge

Comment by dgfl 8 hours ago

Not sure if regular tomography would work, but this has been done at high enough resolution with some fancier techniques (ptychography): https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07615-6

I would imagine this is of decent interest to people reverse engineering chip designs, or doing failure analysis, so it’s possible someone might actually be trying this at scale.

Comment by Arubis 5 hours ago

You can destructively deprocess dies, removing a layer at a time and imaging at each layer. 20ish years ago you could still do this with a polishing wheel and a fine slurry; don’t know if that’s still viable.

Comment by throwaway198846 9 hours ago

Computer, enhance!

Comment by kkotak 8 hours ago

We need two people on the keyboard at the same time to enahnce.

Comment by elictronic 8 hours ago

It’s like taking a picture of someone’s house to determine their current medical diagnosis.

Garbage in, it’ Herpes.

Comment by giancarlostoro 8 hours ago

Could have just said to determine where all the pipes are but you know, you could go all the way to herpes I suppose… :)

Comment by omoikane 4 hours ago

See also Ken Shirriff's blog, which has die photos plus detailed explanation of how things work.

https://www.righto.com/

https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=righto.com

Comment by karim79 9 hours ago

Amazing site. I've a friend who is an aspiring oil painter and I just sent him this link. I can't wait to see the results!

Comment by superjan 8 hours ago

Here is one more (intel 4004)

https://image.jimcdn.com/app/cms/image/transf/none/path/s674...