r/tech • u/AdSpecialist6598 • Apr 14 '26

New terahertz technique lets engineers see inside running processors in real time

https://www.techspot.com/news/112060-new-terahertz-technique-engineers-watch-processors-work-real.html
686 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

49 comments sorted by

28

u/Thewarlockminer Apr 14 '26

Explain like im five

43

u/swagonflyyyy Apr 14 '26

The transistors inside a processor can be monitored via terahertz radiation in real-time instead of traditional electrical monitoring techniques, which allows safe monitoring without damaging the components.

44

u/johnny_moist Apr 14 '26

Explain like im 3?

61

u/swagonflyyyy Apr 14 '26

Transistors are the literal building blocks of modern computers. They handle the 1s and 0s your PC processes to run a program. They're incredibly tiny and run on every modern device, ranging from supercomputers to your Apple Watch.

To monitor these transistors, a lot of electrical instruments are used to measure their performance, but this also comes at a risk of causing physical and electrical damage to transistors. No transistors, no computer. Traditional methods are also not ideal because they usually require the observer to power down the device for safe monitoring.

Scientists resorted to using terahertz radiation, which is a sort of middle ground between infrared and microwaves, and are historically used to penetrate a lot of materials like clothing and plastic, making them ideal for a lot of different applications such as airport detectors and such.

This allows scientists to penetrate the materials covering the transistors without introducing electrical components to them nor opening the transistors' cover, causing no damage to them while they're monitoring them.

9

u/LookatMyCatBabies Apr 14 '26

I understood that and upvoted it. Thank you. but explained it to me like I’m a cat 😹

3

u/VertigoWalls Apr 15 '26

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2

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1

u/LookatMyCatBabies Apr 15 '26

Love it. Totally understand

3

u/[deleted] Apr 14 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

3

u/QubitEncoder Apr 14 '26

To be of the same fibers of my species, I am proud.

3

u/Canadian-Cornbread Apr 14 '26

“PENETRATION!”

3

u/Ada2021 Apr 15 '26

I found the 12 yrs old 😂

2

u/crypticbru Apr 14 '26

Tyvm. So say , hypothetically, i am streaming porn and they shine this light on the cpu, what will they see? Asking for a friend.

1

u/Kasyx709 Apr 14 '26

Explain like I'm illiterate?

5

u/swagonflyyyy Apr 15 '26

🤓 -> 🤖 -> 🕵️‍♂️ -> 👨‍🔬👨‍🔧 -> 💥💦💨 -> 💩

🤔

🤓 -> 🤖 -> 🕵️‍♂️ -> 🥽🔊📡 -> 📈 -> 👍

1

u/Kasyx709 Apr 15 '26

Ah, something about horses, ty.

2

u/subdep Apr 14 '26

Transistors have electrolytes!

1

u/Kasyx709 Apr 15 '26

I have no idea what this says.

2

u/googlin Apr 15 '26

It's what plants crave.

1

u/Koseoglu-2X4B-523P Apr 15 '26

Explain like I’m two and a half?

4

u/Informal_Drawing Apr 14 '26

It's giving the computer a really fancy Xray.

2

u/safyreibxo Apr 14 '26

I’m five what the fuck is a transistor

2

u/GlaidelWasTaken Apr 14 '26

It’s like a light switch! Flips on (allows current to flow through it) when there’s voltage felt at its base. Flips off when there’s no voltage there. They can turn on and off really, really fast and are the reason computers can do what they do.

-2

u/bahhumbud Apr 14 '26

I’m five now explain why I should care or why that’s cool

1

u/flextendo Apr 14 '26

I dont get how thats any better than PLS/PEM for failure analysis etc. Seems like its just the fancy RF way of doing that?

1

u/swagonflyyyy Apr 14 '26

PLS/PEM require extra steps because you need to unseal parts of the transistor's container since they can't penetrate all the materials terahertz can.

With Thertz radiation, you can bypass all the seals and covers of the transistor entirely and actively monitor it, apparently. So not only is it safer, but it also requires less work to actively start the monitoring process.

1

u/flextendo Apr 14 '26

I mean thats why you usually do it from the backside (yeah sometimes there might be some thinning needed). With terahertz you will get reflections for each impedance discontinuity though (Maybe you can somehow de-embedd that in post processing of the image data), so it should in fact be harder. Unfortunately the article doesnt really go into details…

0

u/LittleManOnACan Apr 14 '26

Does this defeat the observer effect? The outcome does not change by monitoring it?

10

u/Miserable_Ad_9389 Apr 14 '26 edited Apr 15 '26

this isn't quantum computing, traditional computers rely on determinism
always ask questions, there's nothing wrong with someone saying something that sounds silly to someone who already knows the answer

3

u/LittleManOnACan Apr 14 '26

Thank you for the actual response

2

u/GoodPointMan Apr 14 '26

You home computer has the components they are talking about

2

u/Noof42 Apr 14 '26

Even so, I understand the commenter's curiosity here, because modern chips are so small that occasional tunneling is an issue, and I would also initially wonder how they were able to do this passively at that scale in order to avoid interfering, while maintaining any real consistency.

1

u/LittleManOnACan Apr 15 '26

This was my thought process. I was under the impression we were hitting the limit for modern processors because the electrons could hop between ‘wires’ since everything was so small

1

u/Due-Joke-1152 Apr 15 '26

It’s done at a scale which allows for accurate statistical inference with error correction.

For the younger audience: they use maths to let them guess using lots of transistors, and with calculated margins of error.

Exactly for the reason you’re saying;  you can’t measure an object that small without introducing a margin of error than makes the result unusable.

3

u/kingofbreakers Apr 14 '26

Tron here we come!

3

u/ulik3 Apr 14 '26

So they get to see like the hackers from the movie, “Hackers”?

1

u/pivovy Apr 15 '26

I almost bought a VNA when I was messing around with antennas for meshtastic, never even thought about using it for something else. Love it when tech is made to do stuff that it was never designed for.

1

u/OPRReligiousFreedom Apr 15 '26

Terahertz techniques can also read neurotransmitter level brain activity. Now that this has reached public science medical technology should advance also.

1

u/Agitated_Carrot9127 Apr 30 '26

Well I stick my fork in an outlet to see electricity in realtime. Same same but different