Silicon Wafer - Making a Logic Chip - 2 Inch

About this Artwork: The background image of this artwork is of the chips on the silicon wafer (in the bottom right corner of the display). The chip on this silicon wafer is actually a very simple circuit with two transistors. The circuits are Mullard FC131 logic chips produced in the mid-1960s. These chips are dual 4-input DTL NAND/NOR gates. Prior to logic chips, components such as transistors, diodes, resistors, inductors, and capacitors were created as individual packages and were soldered on to printed circuit cards. With logic chips, all components in the circuit were created at the same time, on one piece of silicon, and placed in one package. Diode-Transistor Logic, or DTL, was the first technology used in making logic chips. DTL used diodes and transistors to build logic gates and circuits. There are about 480 DTL Mullard FCH131 logic chips on this 1.5” silicon wafer. In the bottom right corner of the display is a dual-in-line package that would be the type used for an FCH131.