Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

There's a brilliant talk, given in 2009 at HOPE09, NYC titled "Indistinguishable From Magic: Manufacturing Modern Computer Chips".

At roughly 36 minutes, there's a cross-section of a (in 2009) modern chip. The topmost layer is the shiny rainbowy topmost metal-layer you see on typical (from the top) die photographs. The very, very small comb-looking bottommost-layer is the individual transistors, and structures there are of the size that give a "xxx nm" process its name.

https://youtu.be/NGFhc8R_uO4?t=36m8s

I very much recommend everyone to watch this video, to get a sense for the complexity that goes into producing a modern CPU.

To come back to the thread I'm answering here: The logic analyzer on the Alto (probing microcode) connected to interconnects of individual gates probably would be connected to signals somewhere in the lower middle of the stack in a modern CPU, I guess.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: