THE ART OF THE SILICON CHIP

If you have complied with the group of reverse engineers whose work on traditional pieces of silicon we function on a regular basis right here at Hackaday, you may well be familiar with the appearance of the different elements that comprise their gates as well as other functions. What you may not be familiar with, however, are the features that can sometimes be discovered which have no function other than the personal enjoyment of the chip designers themselves. together with the transistors, resistors, as well as interconnects, there are sometimes bit pieces of artwork inserted into unused areas on the die, visible only to those fortunate sufficient to own a powerful microscope.

Fortunately those of us without such an instrument can likewise take a look at these works, thanks to the Smithsonian Institution, who have brought together a gallery of them on the web as part of their chip collection. In it we discover animation characters such as Dilbert, favourites from children’s books such as Waldo, as well as the Japanese monster Godzilla. There are animals, cows, a leopard, a camel, as well as a porpoise, as well as of program business logos aplenty.

In a sense, these minuscule artworks are what our more strident commenters may explain as Not A Hack, however to reject them in such a way would be to miss their point. even in an age of significant teams of integrated circuit designers working with computerized tools rather than the lone geniuses of old with their hand drafting, we can still see bit flashes of uniqueness without any practical or industrial function as well as without any audience except a extremely few. as well as we like that.

Also take a look at the work of [Ken Shirriff] for a masterclass in IC reverse engineering.