ElI5 how microchips have millions of transistors without placing them individually
In: 5
Have you seen those videos where a painting is made by spraying paint through various stencils? They put one stencil, spray one color then put another stencil and spray a different color and so on until a painting emerges?
Chip making is similar. They start with a silicon disk and then add or remove material using stencils to create transistors and connections between them in place.
The entire process is extremely complicated, a relatively simplistic way of the process is for EUV (Extremely Ultra Violent) Lithography is you take particals for pure tin and you vaporizer it which produces UV light that’s in the ballpark of 5nm
You then take that UV light and reflect it on a wafer, but you need to be extremely accurate. The mirrors are about $100k each and requires about 20 and need to be extremely flat, i.e if the mirror was the size of the US the tallest bump would be about 5mm tall
A wafer is a thin slice of silica that then the light then carves out
If you want a more detailed video[ this one](https://youtu.be/RwW0Yfy0oCw) does a good job at it
As all the other comments note they aren’t placed on the chip, they’re printed on them using photolithography (a poor name considering they don’t print with stone…).
It should also be noted that when designing the chips the transistors aren’t even placed or drawn (they used to be a long time ago in simpler days). Now you have languages and compilers (hardware description languages and synthesizers) that create the chip design. The designer describes what they want the circuit to do and the computer creates the artwork that will be used to print the circuit on the chip.
BTW we’re way past millions and well into billions of transistors on modern ICs…
As all the other comments note they aren’t placed on the chip, they’re printed on them using photolithography (a poor name considering they don’t print with stone…).
It should also be noted that when designing the chips the transistors aren’t even placed or drawn (they used to be a long time ago in simpler days). Now you have languages and compilers (hardware description languages and synthesizers) that create the chip design. The designer describes what they want the circuit to do and the computer creates the artwork that will be used to print the circuit on the chip.
BTW we’re way past millions and well into billions of transistors on modern ICs…
As all the other comments note they aren’t placed on the chip, they’re printed on them using photolithography (a poor name considering they don’t print with stone…).
It should also be noted that when designing the chips the transistors aren’t even placed or drawn (they used to be a long time ago in simpler days). Now you have languages and compilers (hardware description languages and synthesizers) that create the chip design. The designer describes what they want the circuit to do and the computer creates the artwork that will be used to print the circuit on the chip.
BTW we’re way past millions and well into billions of transistors on modern ICs…
For the “simple” digital transistors, that’s correct. The advent of Auto Place and Route software took the digital logic away from hand placed transistors. During the 386, 486, and early Pentium days, hand placement was typical.
Now most of the transistors are APR’d but the larger, more complex analog circuits, are still hand drawn and given some human attention.
Creating a chip with billions isn’t possible without APR.
For the “simple” digital transistors, that’s correct. The advent of Auto Place and Route software took the digital logic away from hand placed transistors. During the 386, 486, and early Pentium days, hand placement was typical.
Now most of the transistors are APR’d but the larger, more complex analog circuits, are still hand drawn and given some human attention.
Creating a chip with billions isn’t possible without APR.
For the “simple” digital transistors, that’s correct. The advent of Auto Place and Route software took the digital logic away from hand placed transistors. During the 386, 486, and early Pentium days, hand placement was typical.
Now most of the transistors are APR’d but the larger, more complex analog circuits, are still hand drawn and given some human attention.
Creating a chip with billions isn’t possible without APR.
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