Legit Reviews

The Inquirer have some pics of IBM's PlayStation chip....Looks BIG.... (this is a pic of a 12" wafer, IBM must have great yields!)

i would love to see the real thing, the ps3 that is. Im not much of a console gamer, but i do have my eye on the ps3. I cant wait to see the graphics in real time!

Why make a square chip on a round plate?

Also, did they make 1/2 chips at the edge?

The round plate is part of the manufacturing processor, which is definantly worth a google. Very interesting. And, as far as I know, the chips at the edge are non-functional.

Tim Burton wrote:Why make a square chip on a round plate?

Also, did they make 1/2 chips at the edge?

They make chips kinda like your photos get developed.... they use Lithography.... Have you ever seen when a photo is being developed, they shine an image of what they want onto paper, then a chemical reaction takes place where the chemical changes color and sticks to the paper.... Well CPU's etc. are kinda made like this... htey are round simply because the equipment they use is round (also allows better yeilds)

Yes the half chips are dead and worth nothing, normally the best chips are taken from the centre, theese are the mobile cpu's or hi-end cpu's

How Stuff Works has an easy'ish explanation

cool article, thanks!!

kenc51 wrote:How Stuff Works has an easy'ish explanation

That's crazy!
What amazes me more than the actual manufacturing process of a processor, is how someone could even think of it to begin with!!!
Like two guys (or gals) were just sitting in by a fire sipping some hot cocoa and discussing technology and silicon and they thought that, "maybe if we direct a laser at a jet of xenon gas to heat it up and create plasma and then condense the subsequently released electrons and pattern them onto a mirror creating something we can call 'extreme-ultraviolet (EUV) light', we could be able to carve transistors in silicon wafers and create the most powerful microprocessors the world has ever seen!!!"

Then the other guy says:
"BRILLIANT!!"

(think Guinness commercial...) ;)

WoW that a big CPU what happen to things getting smaller. I use to work for intel we had over 50 P4 in an 8 inc wafer.

Trollhunter wrote:WoW that a big CPU what happen to things getting smaller. I use to work for intel we had over 50 P4 in an 8 inc wafer.

Isn't it a CELL proc??? They have "mini-cpu's" inside them...(multi-core of some kind) There are general purpose and specialised parts cpu thingys in 'em......(not to get too techie)

Ars Technica wrote:http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/cpu/cell-1.ars

Ars Technica have details on the CELL (all you need to know)
Part 1
Part 2

Taken from Ars Technica... (kudos to them!)