Collaborate Disseminate
The odds are that if you’ve heard about application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) at all, it’s in the context of cryptocurrency mining. For some currencies, the only way to efficiently mine …read more Continue reading Opening Up ASIC Design
Lithium batteries have, nearly single-handedly, ushered in the era of the electric car, as well as battery energy storage of grid power and plenty of other technological advances not possible …read more Continue reading Copy and Paste Lithium Battery Protection
There doesn’t have to be much more to setting up a simple solar panel installation than connecting the panel to a battery. Of course we would at least recommend the …read more Continue reading Comparing Solar Energy Harvesters
With the never ending march of technological progress, arguably the most complex technologies become so close to magic as to be impenetrable to those outside the industry in which they …read more Continue reading Integrated Circuit Manufacturing At Bell Labs In 1983
What does it take to make your own integrated circuits at home? It’s a question that relatively few intrepid hackers have tried to answer, and the answer is usually something …read more Continue reading Old Printer Becomes Direct Laser Lithography Machine
We might be amidst a chip shortage, but if you enjoy reverse-engineering, there’s never a shortage of intriguing old chips to dig into – and the 2513N 5×7 character ROM …read more Continue reading Factory Defect IC Revived With Sandpaper And Microsoldering
Back in 2018 we reported on the first silicon integrated circuit to be produced in a homemade chip fab. It was the work of [Sam Zeloof], and his Z1 chip …read more Continue reading The Zeloof Z2 Intergrated Circuit Has 100 Transistors
There can be few of us who haven’t gazed with fascination upon the work of IC decappers, whether they are showing us classic devices from the early years of mass semiconductor manufacture, or reverse-engineering the latest and greatest. But so often their work appears to require some hardcore scientific equipment …read more
What do you do when you’re working with some vintage ICs and one of the tiny legs pops off? That’s what happened to [Kotomi] when working with an old Super Nintendo. A single lead for the sound chip just snapped off, leaving [Kotomi] one pin short of a working system …read more
When it comes to reverse engineering silicon, there’s no better person to ask than Ken Shirriff. He’s the expert at teasing the meaning out of layers of polysilicon and metal. He’s reverse engineered the ubiquitous 555 timer, he’s taken a look at the inside of old-school audio chips, and he’s found butterflies in his op-amp. Where there’s a crazy jumble of microscopic wires and layers of silicon, Ken’s there, ready to do the teardown.
For this year’s talk at the Hackaday Superconference, Ken walked everyone through the techniques for reverse engineering silicon. Surprisingly, this isn’t as hard as it sounds. …read more
Continue reading Ken Shirriff Explains His Techniques For Reverse Engineering Silicon