From Silicon To Microprocessors 174
prostoalex writes "Jim Turley from Embedded Systems Programming magazine answers the question of where microprocessors come from. While the public generally knows about the silicon and microprocessor vendors, few can describe the process of turning the beach sand into the latest and greatest several-hundred-dollars-worth CPU."
Geeks and history (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:near-first post (Score:3, Insightful)
Raw silicon is grown into crystal ingots, which look like giant silver bolognas. Then it's sliced into exceptionally thin wafers about 6 to 8 inches (200 to 300mm) across
Ummm... yeah...
Re:Misses one important point: yield. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Misses one important point: yield. (Score:2, Insightful)
Beg pardon? Seems for the last 20 years processors have been gaining pins like some adherence to Moore's law. Seen the Athlon 64's lately? Didn't the 6502, 8086 and z80 processors have like 40 pins? I can't see a correllation between pins and die size.
Re:ESP (Score:5, Insightful)
A huge amount. Many embedded systems have real-time requirements, tight memory-space limitations, and a much lower tolerance for failure than desktop systems. If you're talking about a comsumer embedded device (e.g. a cellphone), you have to deal with power management as well. There are multiple operating systems to choose from, several types of processor architectures (including the Harvard Archirtecture typified by Intel's old 8051 family that has entirely separate memory spaces for instructions and data), and several buses specific to embedded systems work.
Why should this matter? There are several embedded systems in your car, and I'm sure you'd be mightily ticked if your car just stopped working randomly. On a more mundane level, what about programmable thermostats or the security card readers where you go to work? That's not to mention the mission-critical embedded systems in aircraft and medical devices.
Why the clean rooms? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This doesn't make sense... (Score:2, Insightful)
Whose Power PC? (Score:2, Insightful)
"Where do microprocessors come from, Daddy?" That's an awkward question we all must answer at some stage in our careers. What mysterious process converts elemental silicon into elemental forces like Intel's Itanium or Motorola's PowerPC? Let us explore the wonder that is semiconductor creation.
Shouldn't that include IBM? [macobserver.com]
Re:Misses one important point: yield. (Score:3, Insightful)