We spotted this medieval 300-micron long sword near the scribe line on a Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750, the microprocessor that is behind the wave of new "Pentium Killer" Macintosh G3 computers. At first we thought the sword represented the fact that the chip is on the cutting edge of RISC processor technology, but we now believe it to be a concealed weapon to keep the processor competitive in the life-threatening chip wars. Another reason for the presence of the sword icon may be that the G3 chips were code-named "Arthur" as in Camelot, and the sword represents Excalibur. In a massive international advertising campaign, Apple boasted this processor to be up to twice as fast as a comparable Intel microprocessor, meaning that a routine task requiring 30 seconds by the G3 Mac would take at least a minute on a Pentium II 400. Regardless of whether these sensational claims are true, the PowerPC 750 microprocessor has most certainly breathed new life into a once-struggling, but very popular platform.
The PowerPC 750, built in a joint collaboration between IBM and Motorola, is a superscalar processor featuring six independent execution units and 32 Kbyte eight-way instructional and data caches. Transistor gate size is 0.17 microns, an indicator of the advanced manufacturing process used in the fabrication of this microprocessor. Over 6.4 million transistors are crammed onto a die that is approximately a third the size of Intel's Pentium II and III and consumes only about a fourth of the power (5 watts for the PowerPC as opposed to 20 for the Pentiums).
While examining the Silicon Graphics MIPS R12000 microprocessor, we found a pair of Egyptian gods that appear to be guarding mask alignment targets on the chip. The photomicrograph above depicts one of the figures who we think is a representation of Anubis, a Jackal-headed Egyptian god who was in charge of embalming and mummification of the royal deceased. This creature is about 100 microns high.
We have seen just about everything you can imagine on the surface of integrated circuits, so it was no great surprise when we discovered a coat of arms on a Hewlett-Packard microprocessor. This is the first example of "chip heraldry" that we have encountered, and although the exact meaning of this coat of arms escapes us, it must have something to do with the heraldry of the Hewlett-Packard VLSI (Very Large Scale Integration) dynasty. We have been informed by HP engineers that Spectrum was the original name of the PA-RISC (Precision Architecture-Reduced Instruction Set Computing) computer architecture that Hewlett-Packard invented in the mid 1980s and is still using and improving on today. Cheetah and Firefox were the names of the first two computers using this new architecture, and are probably represented in the coat of arms illustrated above (although we are not sure of the exact nature nor meaning of the animals in this coat).
Typical construction motifs for a classic coat of arms are illustrated in the figure above. Among the necessary elements are a crest, torse, and helmet that act as a "header" for the herald. These elements are encapsulated into a single "crown" on the HP coat, probably indicating the superior or royal nature of this coat. The "mantling" is executed with a cheetah on the left of the shield and a dog or wolf (Firefox) to the right. Both animals are raised in an attack pose. The "scroll" contains the term SPECTRUM and is subtitled: VLSI. Any visitors with additional information about this artwork are encouraged to contact us with pertinent details.
Another interesting tidbit of information was passed to us by Hewlett-Packard engineer Rick Butler: It seems that the chip fabrication plants have often discouraged "chip art" because of problems encountered with artifacts during the manufacturing process. Under certain circumstances, small metal features from the artwork can "fall off" the chips during processing and the resulting loose metal can interfere with correct operation of the circuitry. It has been suggested that the small spots on the cheetah might have been the source of these problems when they became displaced during manufacture.
We discovered this medieval castle on a Philips integrated circuit labeled V7191 that was made around 1990. This is the same chip that sports a mother and baby owl nesting on a tree branch and tucked away inside the interior circuitry of the chip. Martin Hummel, an ASIC design engineer for AB-Semicon in the United Kingdom, informs us that this chip is a Video Multistandard Decoder.
Birger Schwarz points out that this castle strongly resembles the Hamburger Stadtwappen, a castle that is part of the official arms of the city of Hamburg, Germany. Birger also points out that Philips has a chip fabrication site in Hamburg, which probably means the castle icon is a signature for that plant.
We've finally found some silicon artwork on an Intel chip — the first we have ever seen! This shepherd was discovered tending a two-headed ram on the Intel 8207, a dual-port RAM controller chip used in the early 80x86 era. According to Intel chip designer Robert Stear, the chip was designed and manufactured in the Haifa plant in the early 1980s. Regarding the significance of these doodles, we assume the shepherd represents a "controller" and the two-headed ram symbolizes dual-ported RAM circuitry.
This beautiful rendition of an ancient sundial was discovered near the clock circuitry on the Hewlett-Packard PA-7300LC microprocessor that bore the in-house nickname of "Velociraptor" and also contains this dinosaur creature on another part of the chip. HP manager Rick Butler has informed us that the writing beneath the dial says "VR fp 1995", which stands for VelociRaptor floating point. We are also told that the sundial was partially covered due to the metal being placed on different layers during fabrication. This explains the contrast in definition between the upper and lower portions of the sundial. HP chip designers chose the sundial to represent the clock on this chip because it is much faster than any watch and time does not move in discrete "ticks".
This magnificent rendition of Thor, the Norse god of thunder, was discovered on a Hewlett-Packard graphics support chip. According to legend, Thor was the son of Odin and Jord and later married Sif (a fertility goddess), although he kept a mistress named Jarnsaxa (the "iron cutlass"). It was also widely believed that during a thunderstorm, Thor could be found sailing through the heavens on his goat-powered chariot, and that lightning flashed whenever he threw his hammer (named Mjollnir).
At 1.1 square millimeters in size, this silicon artwork is not only the finest we have seen to date, it is also one of the largest and required our lowest-power microscope objective (5x) to capture the entire image. Hewlett-Packard engineer Rick Butler loaned us this chip, along with the marathon chip that contains a tennis shoe. Rick was also instrumental in providing us with information about the "sunken via" method of creating these doodles as revealed in our interactive Java tutorial on building a silicon Yin Yang, and other general discussions about silicon artwork.
Hewlett-Packard chip designer Darrin Miller originally decided to incorporate the Thor rendition on this chip. He asked graphics designer April Comer to draw the Viking and she produced four ideas about how the god could appear. Darrin picked one and turned it into a contact "bitmap" for placement on the final masks, yielding the image presented above. It is somewhat ironic that both Darrin and April are graduates of the University of Florida, our in-state football rivals.
