From Sand to Silicon: The Making of a Microchip | Intel (video)

[ObscureMammal]

cool video from Intel showing some of the steps used to make a microchip

 

 

[Drama Lama]

yea interesting but feels a bit like an advertisment

[NicoV]

Nitpicks:

"Pushing the limits of science"
No sh**, they shot for the moon for the original 10nm, and totally missed. We just don't have the level of chemical control that they needed to get that cobalt trick to work. Maybe try something a little more reasonable this time.

 

"give each Intel chip limitless potential"

With enough volts and LN2, sure.

 

"It's one of mankind's most complex feats"

No argument there.

 

"Intel has essentially doubled transistor density every new generation"

-literally shows a graph of incremental yearly improvements- You haven't doubled transistor density in a single generation in a long time, neither has anyone else at that level of transistor size for that matter, and that isn't even what your graph shows.

 

"Intel has devised several innovations to overcome fundamental barriers to continue transistor density scaling"

How many years ago was 10nm supposed to be? Again, Intel pulls off a ton of amazing technological tricks, they just went down the completely wrong road 5 years ago. Also their sentence is worded in the past tense, so I'll give them that.

 

"Innovation processor packaging has become a critical feature of advanced computing architecture"

What was that about glued together chips?

 

"2D and 3D packaging technologies are enabling new device form factors and additional boosts in performance and energy efficiency.

Sooooo, EPYC?.. Admittedly AMD did mess up with HBM a bit before they figured out a more useful version of the multiple dies idea.

 

"Adding more performance and features to each new processor generation"

Thanks for the finally not quad cores I guess? I don't know, for some reason it feels like that was more reactionary than actual innovation, I wonder why... Oh right, 1700Xs.

 

"Intel's integrated design and manufacturing capabilities have enabled humanity to innovate game-changing technologies that impact nearly ever facet of modern life." 

Ok yes, computers are very important for almost everything we do now, and you did make a lot most of the consumer and datacenter chips for almost a whole decade, but that is some serious self congratulation. Also, you're only in this ridiculous situation because of your insistence on not releasing what is now a several year old architecture until you had a new process to make it on.

 

-The next 30 seconds is copy-paste marketing speak about being powered by creators-

ZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzz

 

Whoever is in charge of Intel's presumably enormous marketing team, please stop making stuff life this, and please start figuring out a new naming scheme that actually makes sense. Who knows? The engineers who design the chips might be able to give you some tips on the actual differences.

 

Now time to find an AMD equivalent to this video and go on a similar nitpick.