I just don’t understand how putting elements, rocks, minerals or whatever computer parts are made of together can make something as complex as a computer.
How did we go from sticks and stones to having access to anything you want to know infront of you by pressing a couple buttons?
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We figured out how to build a *huge* number of cleverly connected switches really cheaply.
A switch (on/off) has two states, so it can represent binary numbers (usually called “0” and “1”). So anything we can do with binary math we can do with switches. And, since we know how to translate between binary math and any other math, we can do any math we want. In addition, you can express logic statements (true/false) the same way. So we can design “logic operations”, analogous to math operations, and do logical things with switches too.
Now it’s “just” a matter of stacking up switches. *Anything* we can reduce to math and logic can be done by a sufficient number of switches, if we just have enough of them.
So we figured out, a long time ago, what arrangements of switches do simple things like add two numbers, or decide if one number is bigger than another, or things like that. Those are little modules. We can wire up modules to do more complicated things.
And we learned “stereolithograpy”, which is a way to very cheaply manufacturer billions of switches and wires at a time.
Computers are made through an intricate manufacturing process that involves assembling electronic components like microprocessors, memory chips, and circuits on silicon wafers. These components are then combined and connected to form a functional computer. The advancement from basic tools to powerful computers is the result of centuries of technological progress, with the development of transistors and integrated circuits being pivotal in creating the complex devices we have today. This evolution showcases human ingenuity and scientific discoveries over time.
Computing is done in layers, called layers of abstraction. Not only does the end user not really know what happens just beneath the surface, each computer scientist or engineer who is an expert on a particular layer doesn’t need to understand much about the layer above or below them. The layers all stack together to form the user experience.
If you want a video explaining how chips are made [here’s a link](https://youtu.be/RwW0Yfy0oCw?si=lwDR9pyQahX8pCpW)
The starting steps of chip production is refining silica, you then use that to grow into a crystal that’s then thinly sliced into a disc called a [wafer](https://www.michigansthumb.com/news/article/New-semiconductor-wafer-manufacturing-research-16409152.php)
You then take those wafers and use UV or EUV (Extreme Ultraviolet) Light to carve into those wafers somewhere in the range of ~5 Nanometers for the light, part of this process is also called doping, which is infusing another element into the wafer, this is used to help control how electricity would flow while inside the wafer
When dealing with something like this, you need to be *extremely* precise, like that video explains, there’s a reason that only one company is able to produce the equipment to even do this, you can need a way to reflect the EUV light so they need custom mirrors in the ballpark of $120k for each mirror and requires dozens
Part of this carving is called lithograph, and the reason is to print transistors into the wafer
That’s the essence of what makes computers work and why they have so many transistors in them. Low voltage is then read as a 0 while higher voltage is read as a 1, these signals then use logic gates to get other outputs
The general strategy is “divide and conquer“.
How do we make sense of anything that’s too big and too complex to understand? We break it down into smaller and easier to understand parts.
And if that smaller sub-part is still too big and too complex to understand? Then we keep breaking that down to even smaller and simpler parts.
Keep doing this, and we will eventually arrive at a very large number of very basic parts, each one of them small and simple. But if we put them together in a certain way, then they “work as designed”.
But how does anyone understand each of those parts, and how to put them together in just the right way? The answer is there is not just one person, but a very large team of people, each an expert at their own specific thing.
They tell each other exactly what their specific thing does (this is called a Specification), and they make sure that whatever thing that come out of their factory does exactly what the specification says ( this is called Quality Assurance), so that everyone else can use their specific part, and trust that it works, to build something bigger and more complex.
So, in summary, in the design phase, we break down a big and complex design into smaller and simpler parts, and figure out how those smaller parts should work together. Then in the manufacturing phase, we do the opposite. We start by building the smallest and simplest parts. Test them to make sure that they work. Then assemble them to make something slightly bigger and more complex, and test to make sure that it works as expected. Then we repeat the process to make something more complex … and repeat until we get our final product.
They were built up from less complex machines over the years.
We harnessed electricity and started building simple circuits. Eventually we had telegraphs, electrical adding machines & typewriters, radios, radar, and electronically controlled factory machines. The number of types of components you could put into a circuit grew. The invention of the transistor, which is a special kind of switch, was revolutionary. We figured out how to the parts smaller and smaller, and to do more and more complex things with them.
Calculators, for example, took input, applied your choice of algorithms to those numbers, and gave you an output. Computers were much the same, but also allowed you to make your own algorithms. Methods of input, output, and information (number) storage evolved.
Computer parts continued to get more powerful and ever smaller. All along the way, a lot of effort went into making computers able to pass information back and forth to each other.
They were built up from less complex machines over the years.
We harnessed electricity and started building simple circuits. Eventually we had telegraphs, electrical adding machines & typewriters, radios, radar, and electronically controlled factory machines. The number of types of components you could put into a circuit grew. The invention of the transistor, which is a special kind of switch, was revolutionary. We figured out how to the parts smaller and smaller, and to do more and more complex things with them.
Calculators, for example, took input, applied your choice of algorithms to those numbers, and gave you an output. Computers were much the same, but also allowed you to make your own algorithms. Methods of input, output, and information (number) storage evolved.
Computer parts continued to get more powerful and ever smaller. All along the way, a lot of effort went into making computers able to pass information back and forth to each other.
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