[Scott Dorsey]

Richard Crowley wrote:
"Chris Hornbeck" wrote ...
I have an Intel "wafer" from back in the 486 era, when Ginny
was still teaching and Intel provided it along with some other
elementary school materials. The dies, if separated, would be
about 0.65 cm x 0.75cm and the bisquit itself is a little less
than 15cm circumference. No clue what it is.... hint, hint...

Wow, that is an oldie. We went from 150mm (6-inch) to 200mm
(8-inch). Today we have more 300mm (12-inch) fabs on my campus
(in Hillsboro, OR) than anywhere else on the planet. The next step is
450mm (18-inch) wafers. But I can't reveal when that will be. :-)

With technology like this, why the hell can't I get decent discrete
transistors? All I want is a 2N5088 that is really a 2N5088 and not
some wacky noise generator.

These days, wafers at any step of processing are considered trade-
secret intellectual property and are treated like secret documents.
They sure don't hand them out anymore. You have a collecor's item.
I wonder how much it is worth? Do they sell them on eBay?

I used to write code on a CDC Star-100 computer which had the actual
wafers mounted uncut inside a box and all the leads tacked from one
point on the wafer to another. And I can still get die-cut bare
chips for a lot of things, so why can't I get the uncut wafers?

If you examine it under a strong enough microscope, you should
be able to read some kind of text identifying what it is. You might
be able to identify it by image and die size from public info online.
I turn to Wikipedia more often than internal sources to identify
chips. It is more straightforward and I can't get into trouble for
accessing classified internal info without a "need to know". :-)

Yes, it should say something like iAPX432 on the side of each chip....
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."