gorgeous ^^

as someone into photography myself I appreciate this effort a lot

imi wrote on 2020-09-07, 00:36:

gorgeous ^^

as someone into photography myself I appreciate this effort a lot

Thanks! These images are technically very difficult to create, and I have companies that pay me to create modern images of computer components for catalogs etc... but not like this. This is a labour of love. 😀

This is really cool. I might have to try doing that sometime.

Very cool and beautiful! I've never thought it's so difficult to make.

Here's a 386 shot (A80386-20), similar technique.

In order to get the die to show off it's colour, the die was illuminated by point light sources from a distance. This created some tough shadows for the cavity, so that was shot separately and composited together for the final image. Yeah, I learned a lesson with this one - pry off the lid from the CORNER. Broke a few bond wires and I'm feeling pretty guilty about it.

Beautiful work, and love hearing about the process. Hope you keep them coming 😀

Nice! After seeing these photos I started to wonder how likely is the CPU to work after exposing the die. Here is one video with 486 that supposedly works, and it's even not in clean environment https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3L03k21RDhE

I was thinking about using apple watch tempered glass screen protector or something like that to cover the die immediately after removing the cover, and applying some clear epoxy on the edges. It would be best to do that under laminar flow hood 😀 Another idea is to attach extension wires to the CPU pins, so it can be mounted inverted in the socket, with die facing the user... and test how sensitive is exposed silicon to light of different wavelengths 😀

Silicon is protected with a glass like layer and the gold bond wires etc. are not going to disintegrate either in a typical atmosphere. The main issue will be physical debris getting in there and knocking together some bond wires or something...

Yeah, if the lid is removed very carefully and nothing is damaged, the chip should continue to function just fine. That 386 is toast, but the Pentium Pro likely still works.

Debris could get in there, but I also don't know what long-term effect the atmosphere would have on the silicon. Not sure if anyone knows if the cavity is originally filled with just air or some inert gas - some long-term experiments are easy to do - all you need is time and a machine to leave running in a corner. 😀

Here's another one, a chip that doesn't usually get a lot of fanfare: the Intel A82497-66 cache controller:

This one was opened up without any damage, and was able to be illuminated in one sequence - the chip cavity with a ring flash and the die with a point-source light simultaneously.

These are some very nice photos 😀

Very nice. Thank you!

very nice, I'd be interested in some shots of your camera setup too ^^

Looks cool, nice work!

True beauty - both in the subject and the process to take it. Thanks for sharing - we are fortunate to have someone willing and able to undertake this particular labour of love 😀

Beautiful!

Amazing pictures!

Something like these would look really good on the walls of any respectable geek-basement 😀

I thought the ppro had a kind of oblong die shape. Nice photo tho.

kolderman wrote on 2020-09-12, 08:11:

I thought the ppro had a kind of oblong die shape. Nice photo tho.

The package has, as there is actually two dies in it - the CPU and the cache ..