
SVG Mask Artwork of the Intel 4004 - kevinchen
http://www.4004.com/2015-news.html
======
cft
[https://youtu.be/gPKZSuXAVMU](https://youtu.be/gPKZSuXAVMU) I was watching
this 1972 Intel video about the applications of the 4004 chipset, and thought
that this product was more complex in the engineering sense than what 95% of
the current Unicorns produce now. I find this trend worrysome long term for
the Silicon Valley.

~~~
jerf
You might be surprised about the complexity of what is being produced in those
"Unicorns". If it were simple, it would have been created forty years ago.

It would also be interesting to compare the efforts made then with what it
would take today to make as 4004-equivalent. It would certainly be much
easier. Anyone in the field armed with the right tools care to hazard a guess?

~~~
cft
You are talking about either _business_ complexity or the critical minimum
amount of money that is necessary to enter and dominate a market. I am taking
about the _engineering_ complexity.

They could not be created earlier for the same reason why Hollywood could not
have been created in the 17th century: there was no motion pictures technology
or modern internet distribution channels. But none of that tech has to do with
Hollywood.

The engineering complexity of Airbnb is in the ARM SOC and in the GPS
constellation, but not in their app.

~~~
silentsea90
It isn't necessary that a Unicorn must create something technically
sophisticated and intricate. Airbnb is a service, not a tech product. This is
an apples to oranges comparison.

There are plenty of startups that work on challenging engineering problems
(though I'd have to google for the Unicorns who do that).

~~~
kuschku
Then we should call it "Service Valley" and the people doing this "business
men", not "Silicon Valley" and "software _engineer_ ".

Even comparing the engineering complexity of what Google does, and what
Airbnb, Uber, etc do is impossible. Many large unicorns are doing nothing new,
or special. They are only clicking existing technology together. Which means
they are very easy to outcompete, too.

~~~
silentsea90
Whether you like it or not, Silicon Valley startups do have a habit of
overemphasizing the tech aspects of their companies to get the best talent. It
isn't a bad strategy, considering that it makes sure that your business or
service isn't susceptible to a technologically superior startup showing up and
providing the same services. It is indeed true that there isn't anything
groundbreaking about Airbnb or Zenefits (at least technologically). Uber has
disrupted the way we travel using technology. Though it isn't as complex as
Google, it is still a valid disruption using tech.

Well, it isn't always true that unicorns are easy to outcompete. I could argue
that Amazon (not AWS) isn't anything special either. The point of a unicorn
isn't to develop complex tech. At scale, these companies are hard to beat.

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andmarios
Today a group of passionate undergraduates (guesstimate about 24 people) could
probably design and build the schematics for the mask from ground up (not
copying) as a semester project without neglecting the rest of their courses.
The theory, the course material and the free tools (e.g for CAD and
simulation) are that good!

44 years ago though, only a few talented engineers worldwide could implement
it. :)

~~~
craigjb
I would guess even less than 24. Today you can write your structural Verilog
implementation, run an automatic mapping to a PDK standard cell library, and
simulate to verify. The hardest part might be floor planning for something
like that today. The placement and routing can all be automagical, and you
won't have any timing closure issues at these speeds. I'd guess a single
student could do it if sufficiently motivated. And, with CMP or MOSIS you
could have it manufactured on a 350nm CMOS process by AMS for $2200 (20-25
pcs).

~~~
andmarios
24 people for doing the work Intel's engineers did. That is given the ISA and
some hints (e.g a list of components they are going to need), to start from
basic components and boolean expressions, convert them to CMOS circuits by
hand and then draw them efficiently in a software like Magic.

------
etep
It is interesting and important that we refer to these masks as "artwork."
Many of these older designs also have "signatures" etched into the silicon.

I claim that this notion extends to code, as well, and rightly into many other
engineering and scientific projects (I suspect the pure math community might
agree, i.e. by my reading of how they view their own discipline).

As an informal definition of art, I offer creativity within some bounds, i.e.
the rules of the medium. Often, the tighter the bounds, the higher we elevate
the end result (e.g. the most praised sonnet, or work of classical music).
Here the bounds are pretty constrained: bug free, implements the ISA,
manufacturable, and competitive and profitable.

As with many here, I am frustrated with my work when it is reduced to "turning
the crank," but I suspect many writers (e.g. your Reuter's journalist) feel
the same; and of course, we could introduce other examples from other
disciplines. If working on a ground breaking project, then I can focus on that
and derive some satisfaction from my contribution to that end.

Finally, my point: I submit these masks as evidence of the artificial
dichotomy between the liberal arts and engineering disciplines. There should
be more acknowledgement of the art produced on both sides of this divide, and
more crossing the aisle (so-to-speak) from the thought leaders in this debate.
Of course we need to train our next generation to work with these machines,
and of course we should not kick the traditional liberal arts out of the
curriculum. Sheesh. But I really would like some push back that claims our
ground, i.e. technical achievement of this kind as art.

~~~
bcohen5055
I've always disagreed with the statement that elegant engineering is art. The
purpose of art is to convey a statement or emotion while engineering is to
deliver the best possible solution within a pile of constraints. Scientific
and engineering findings should not be seen as anything more than the outcomes
of a puzzle. Although 2 engineers may arrive at slightly different results it
is easy to score them and select the correct path. In art this is not possible
as both artists are conveying their message, not presenting a solution.

~~~
lostInTheWoods3
"The purpose of art is to ...." Um, no, Art can have any purpose its creator
bestows, including none at all.

------
nsxwolf
I'm not sure I know how to estimate this, but I'd like to know how many 4004s
you could fit on a die the size of the original 4004, if you used today's
smallest transistor technology.

~~~
jmount
I think the 4004 was a 10um (micrometer) technology and new we have 14nm
(nanometer) transistors. So the individual transistors are 1400 times smaller
in linear dimensions. So you could plausibly pack 1400*1400 = 1960000 or
almost 2 million of those into a same sized die.

~~~
ant6n
Lets build a 1000 core cpu. And since the bottleneck will be the connections,
let's build them as SOCs and bundle them with ram and ethernet.

~~~
kruhft
Here's 144:
[http://www.greenarraychips.com/](http://www.greenarraychips.com/). Built to
run Forth by the guy that invented Forth using Forth:
[http://www.colorforth.com/vlsi.html](http://www.colorforth.com/vlsi.html).

------
avmich
Is it possible to DIY 4004 now, given all the information? :)

~~~
Gladdyu
Definitely, if you just want implement one in a HDL. For instance the RISC-V
ISA has been implemented multiple times in various languages [for instance:
[https://github.com/ucb-bar/riscv-sodor](https://github.com/ucb-bar/riscv-
sodor)]. RISC-V is quite a bit more complex than the 4004 ISA.

If you want to DIY the entire chip, as in manually lay out the transistors, I
suppose it can be done if you have quite a bit of experience in electrical
engineering, but it'd be rather cumbersome given the 'modern' (as far as HDL
tooling is modern) tooling that is already available.

~~~
avmich
Thank you, but the idea was to actually recreate the die itself. That's where
one can use all those available masks.

FPGA path is nice, but masks are useless - and instead a HDL is needed, with
the whole 'nother toolchain.

~~~
FullyFunctional
"Fabbing" your own ICs is very hard. I know only of a single DIY effort which
succeed and it takes much equipment and knowledge. Personally, I'd be happy to
make just a couple of transistors (see also:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10558206](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10558206))

------
boyaka
"Credits: Federico Faggin, in many ways, including 4001 prototypes"

And credits to Masatoshi Shima most of all (initially from Busicom but came to
work at Intel and was mostly responsible for the 8080 as well, then the Z80).

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intrasight
I don't see "SVG" mentioned anywhere in that article

~~~
ChuckMcM
This is your clue:

New: Scalable Vector Mask Artwork _for Museum-sized Exhibits_

My guess is that you have to license it from them.

~~~
jaak
The drawing is undergoing verification. When it's been verified it'll be
posted on the download page:
[http://www.4004.com/#downloads](http://www.4004.com/#downloads)

~~~
ChuckMcM
Very cool. My plan is to use it to make a 4004 out of acrylic :-) (probably 36
" x 35" )

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Aardwolf
Beautiful :)

Is there a diagram with all the logic gates of this CPU available somewhere?

Not sure if it's possible to tell that from this mask, I guess it is for an
expert?

~~~
Gladdyu
[http://www.4004.com/assets/4004-lajos-
schematics.gif](http://www.4004.com/assets/4004-lajos-schematics.gif)

That might be one.

~~~
cushychicken
Wow; that's even cooler than what OP was asking for. It's the actual
transistor logic of the chip, unobscured by gate symbols. Very cool! It's
simpler than I would have guessed!

~~~
hatsunearu
"unobscured"?

transistor level schematics are kind of unreadable at this scale. It's a
better idea to represent them as blocks or at least at the gate level and
notate the specifics like timing and such.

~~~
cushychicken
It's not easy, but it's possible. I wouldn't want to deal with one much bigger
than this, though.

