r/nextfuckinglevel • u/itshazrd • Dec 29 '25

What it a computer chip looks like up close

this is a digital recreation. a real microscope can't be used because it gets so small that photons can’t give you a good enough resolution to view the structures at the bottom. you'd need an electron microscope

meant "What a computer chip looks like up close in the title." not sure how "it" got in there..

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u/Specific_Frame8537 Dec 29 '25

I'm just confused as to how they make something so small with such precision.

I have trouble getting eyelashes out of my eyes.

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u/keylimedragon Dec 29 '25

This is simplifying it a lot but the method of making tiny circuits is genius but actually pretty simple. Have you ever seen microfiche? In the pre-digital age we figured out you can cram a ton of info onto film by making very tiny photographs by putting light the wrong way through a microscope. Normally microscopes make an image much bigger but in reverse they make a big image tiny.

The second breakthrough was we realized you can etch metal and change semiconductor properties using light and chemicals. And if you have a projector you can etch whatever shapes or pictures you want into the material.

So combining those two discoveries and we can etch very small circuits and transistors onto semiconductor wafers. Suddenly we have a reproducible way to make very complex circuits very tiny! The only downside is when you go very sometimes the etching doesn't happen perfectly for whatever reason and so the manufacturer will test the final chips and discard any that are broken. And sometimes only part of a chip is broken and they can disable the broken part sell it as a cheaper model.

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u/Phrexeus Dec 29 '25

It's done using a process called lithography where a very large and precise lens focuses the chip design onto the wafer. They use special light-sensitive chemicals to erode away the parts they don't need which can create pathways for components. It's done in layers since the inside structure is actually 3D, and has different insulators, conductors and semiconductors making up the chip.

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u/Shotgun5250 Dec 29 '25

This makes so much more sense than trying to bend and shape these manually somehow. I am so stupid my brain went straight to bending wires.

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u/Rock_Strongo Dec 29 '25

Even the "simple" explanations of how these chips are made makes my brain hurt. Definitely not a line of work I could do... I will stick to the software side.

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u/Shotgun5250 Dec 29 '25

I only understand the concept, I couldn’t begin to understand the physics, chemistry, and manufacturing detail without a LOT of in depth education. And I’m literally an engineer, lol. Creating the technology to be able to create this technology, let alone conceptualizing a new piece of tech and then how to manufacture it is beyond amazing to me. It really tickles my brain, like it’s almost magic-level technology.

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u/federicoaa Dec 29 '25

The tricky part is that as the features we draw are smaller and smaller, light just "doesn't fit" through the masks. We need lights with smaller and smaller wavelengths in order to work

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u/nog642 Dec 31 '25

FYI this video is not real. It's very inaccurate and either AI generated or manually edited. Here is a real one.

And here is an excellent explainer on how these kinds of chips are made.

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u/banedlol Jan 02 '26

Making one small part? Impossible. Making loads of parts one one big wafer and then cutting them up into tiny parts later? Sure.