51
votes
Accepted
Is there a theoretical possibility of having a full computer on a silicon wafer instead of a motherboard?
It is theoretically possible. However I would describe it as practically impossible.
When manufacturing silicon chips, you have a certain defect density over your wafer. Usually chips in the center ...
- 1,471
37
votes
Why are most COB LEDs physically yellow?
The actual LEDs are probably blue and the encapsulation contains phosphors to generate the rest of the spectrum. The phosphors used will appear yellow.
Figure 1. The blue peak is direct emission from ...
- 170k
33
votes
Why are chip designers called "triangle pushers"?
They are called "polygon pushers".
polygon pusher: n.
A chip designer who spends most of his or her time at the physical layout level (which requires drawing lots of multi-colored polygons). ...
- 8,155
30
votes
Is there a theoretical possibility of having a full computer on a silicon wafer instead of a motherboard?
can big silicon companies such as Intel, AMD produce a whole computer
with cpu, chipset, RAM, memory controllers, all in a microchip?
Keep in mind that what you might think of as one silicon wafer ...
- 11.9k
27
votes
Accepted
Why are chip designers called "triangle pushers"?
Early masks for the creation of layers on an IC were created by a photographic process that involved exposing the original photographic plate through a mechanically controlled triangular aperture. ...
- 8,418
19
votes
Accepted
Why are most COB LEDs physically yellow?
Because white LEDs do not actually exist.
The yellow you are seeing is a phosphor (a substance that absorbs light of one color and emits it again in another color) known as cerium-doped yttrium-...
- 508
18
votes
Accepted
Why is this CMOS implementation of XOR wrong?
Have you tried simulating this design to see what it does? (I would not recommend actually building it.)
Recall the basics of n-channel MOSFETs: they will conduct when the voltage at the gate (\$V_G\$)...
- 3,296
16
votes
Why is the 8061 microcontroller described as having 256 bytes of internal memory?
Their terminology is sloppy IMO. In any case:
0x00 - 0x0F are specialized registers
0x10 - 0xFF are memory registers (SRAM)
There are only 240 bytes of SRAM. If you need more SRAM than this, you can ...
- 13.7k
15
votes
Is there a theoretical possibility of having a full computer on a silicon wafer instead of a motherboard?
Theoretically, yes. Wafer-scale integration has been discussed in the past.
Practically, no. Manufacturing processes for DRAM and flash are customized and tweaked for those products, so there are ...
- 31.2k
10
votes
Accepted
What does the "side-band" and "in-band" mean in the context of digital circuit?
Many digital interfaces have more than one method of passing information. The main one is usually at high speed and takes the majority of the capability of the medium. Any information along this path ...
- 32.3k
10
votes
Why is the 8061 microcontroller described as having 256 bytes of internal memory?
The 120 * 16 is probably just 240 bytes - the 16 indicating a 16-bit wide register.
- 32.3k
10
votes
What is the reason some microcontrollers are designed to be powered with 5V or 3.3V while the most common battery is 3.7V?
Because the voltages micro-controllers run on has nothing to do with batteries. And you wouldn't want them to be, because battery voltages are not stable over time. A 3.7 V battery might be 4.2 V ...
- 18k
9
votes
Is there a theoretical possibility of having a full computer on a silicon wafer instead of a motherboard?
In addition to all the other answers: We are kind of getting there, where it makes sense.
Early computers had dedicated chips for cache, graphics, audio, bus controller (PCI, AGP etc.), memory ...
- 844
8
votes
Why is the 8061 microcontroller described as having 256 bytes of internal memory?
The 8061 was a Ford-specific engine control product from the 1980s so the information available is pretty sketchy.
Assuming it's similar to the 8096, the first 256 bytes of the memory map are devoted ...
- 379k
8
votes
Is there a theoretical possibility of having a full computer on a silicon wafer instead of a motherboard?
Sure, it’s possible. There’s several issues however:
Manufacturing yield
Process optimization
I/O and power connections
Memory
Silicon defects increase with area. The larger the chip, the more ...
- 50.1k
8
votes
Why aren't aluminum and nitrogen used as dopants in semiconductors, chips, etc.?
It's a whole series of engineering tradeoffs.
For starters, Nitrogen isn't a dopant at all in crystalline Si.
From an electrical standpoint, Boron is about 50% lower (0.045eV vs 0.067eV for Al) ...
- 1,091
7
votes
Accepted
Which software is used to design (and simulate) IC?
Digital design
Digital circuit design is usually done using a HDL language like Verilog or VHDL.
This can be simulated on digital level with tools like Modelsim / Questa.
https://eda.sw.siemens.com/...
- 1,471
7
votes
Accepted
Why is the Vcc pin almost always next to the GND pin?
Adjacent pins allow very short paths to the critical bypass capacitor.
You always want the DC voltage between Vdd and GND to be pure DC with no glitches or ripples. Longer paths between bypass ...
- 23.8k
6
votes
Accepted
Difference between a memory cell and a memory chip?
Old school: A memory cell holds one bit of information, a 1 or 0. A bit and a cell can be used interchangeably. Memory chips are made up of one or more cells. In modern hardware, memory chips contain ...
- 233
6
votes
Chip Design Computer Generated Files for Fabrication Process
Chip making is a process of lithography, i.e printing.
To do this you use masks, which are used to project patterns into Photo-Resist (PR) on the wafer. Sometimes the mask is used to block things, ...
- 30k
6
votes
Is there a theoretical possibility of having a full computer on a silicon wafer instead of a motherboard?
I think the existing answers explain quite well why you still need a motherboard, even for SoCs that integrate as much as possible into the chip. Fundamentally you are constrained by the need to ...
- 1,261
6
votes
Accepted
Whats the cost to create your own custom ASIC chip?
An FPGA would be my first choice. FPGA logic design requires specialized skills if done properly. This could be done for under $5000 for a prototype (parts and a circuit board) if you do the PCB ...
- 7,769
6
votes
Why aren't aluminum and nitrogen used as dopants in semiconductors, chips, etc.?
Nitrogen forms molecular species with silicon instead of doping occlusions/lattice defects into crystalline silicon. The molecular silicon nitride is an insulator and was (is?) used as a dielectric ...
- 4,072
6
votes
Why is this CMOS implementation of XOR wrong?
Your design leaves the transistor at the output with a floating input. Green means on, red means off. My assumption, in your design, is that all the transistors are active high . The "Given ...
- 915
6
votes
Accepted
What are the possible implementations of LUT on silicon?
One alternative method to make a Look-Up Table is to use a parallel EEPROM chip. The address bus are your inputs, and the data bus are your outputs. The contents of the EEPROM are your logic output ...
- 1,148
5
votes
Difference between a memory cell and a memory chip?
Back in the day you could see each memory "cell", made of a magnetic core, holding one bit of data. Cost about $1 per bit.
They put them on plug in cards.
Then in more modern times they put them in ...
- 7,297
5
votes
What is standard about standard cells in layout designing?
Standard cells usually refer to blocks of logic that are arranged into a library of elements. This is the library you buy from a fabrication facility (FAB) when you order their cervices for chip ...
- 39k
5
votes
Accepted
How the Cerebras across the reticle limits to produce the largest chip,WSE?
The "reticle limits" you allude to refer to the area over which the optics can maintain the highest resolution. This is one of the things that limits the size of a conventional chip.
Normally, when ...
- 169k
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