When we talk about a chip, we often think about it having a really complicated circuits, like the Apple M2 where it has 20 billions of transistors and etc. Back in the days, chip weren’t that complicated so I could digest that they could design it. But nowadays since they’re more complicated, do they really design it when they’re very small like nanometer level?
Ps: I’m not a computer engineering student but feel free to use some technical terms if needed since I take related course to this.
In: 13
20 billion is only about 142,000 x 142,000.
The transistors aren’t laid individually or even by a robot. Someone draws a grid which has 142,000 cells in each direction, that gets printed as a large template, and then a light is shone through that template onto a much, much, much smaller area of silicon.
By doing so it makes tiny “transistors” (not a physical object like you might expect, but just a layer of two types of different semiconductor, which you can make by exposing a template as above in different ways on the right substance).
So long as the layout of the grid, the interconnects between the grid items, etc. are correct, you get a working processor. Basically it’s like printing a pattern onto a T-shirt but using a magnifying glass in between so that the large “pattern” is shrunk down onto a tiny area of silicon.
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