How are computer processors made? Thanks in advance!
In: Engineering
* Ever watch someone spray paint a word onto something using stencils?
* Basically like that.
* It turns out you can create almost any kind of electrical element from the same material.
* Resistors, capacitors, wires, etc. can all be made by blasting silicon with differing amounts of chemical junk.
* Those elements can all be stacked up to build things like transistors.
* Those can be stacked to make things called logic gates.
* Those gates are used to build basic blocks like memory and circuits that can add and subtract.
* And literally everything the processor needs is built from those memory and adder/subtractor circuits.
* Anyway light is projected in a certain pattern onto the silicon and it causes the exposed parts to change.
* The changed part can be washed away and so anything that didn’t get blasted with light remains.
* This allows you to control where the junk chemicals get absorbed by the silicon.
* If you’re very clever you can use the process to make incredible complex patterns that make up all the circuits in your processor.
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