Integrated Circuits & Moore's Law: Crash Course Computer Science #17
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 4 ก.พ. 2025
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So you may have heard of Moore's Law and while it isn't truly a law it has pretty closely estimated a trend we've seen in the advancement of computing technologies. Moore's Law states that we'll see approximately a 2x increase in transistors in the same space every two years, and while this may not be true for much longer, it has dictated the advancements we've seen since the introduction of transistors in the mid 1950s. So today we're going to talk about those improvements in hardware that made this possible - starting with the third generation of computing and integrated circuits (or ICs) and printed circuit boards (or PCBs). But as these technologies advanced a newer manufacturing process would bring us to the nanoscale manufacturing we have today - photolithography.
Check out Veritasium's video: How Does a Transistor Work?
• How Does a Transistor ...
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It's so crazy: photoresist and washing is how old school blue prints were made. Crazy how such a lo-tech method formed the basis of our hi-tech chips.
That's actually the power of abstraction. You can turn low-level tech into high-tech and make it look like magic (I mean mathematics). For example, the first levels were literally turning on and off a switch.
Yeah, it's another application of a technology that was around at the time. The same process was used to make the first PCBs: Take a fiberglass board, coat both sides with copper. Use photoresist and etching to remove unwanted copper, and you're left with copper "traces" - a.k.a. wires - on both sides of the board. Then drill the holes through, and you've got a PCB.
Actually, humans DO still manually lay out millions of transistors on modern IC's! VLSI and place-and-route logic synthesis has it's place but human-driven physical design for the most critical components is still a huge part of the chip design process. Photomask design has been my career for over 15 years :)
would you recommend someone to pursue that career or nah? i'm speaking both in terms of future demand and monetary gains.
Michael Parker ok its 2 years later....
Still waiting on crystals that don't need to be etched or anything...and run ancient alien spaceships :)
So I started taking seriously this series and my life has changed since then. However, I have to watch almost every video twice and then I completely get it. I should be done in about a month with the entire series. Thanks a lot for making it!
I never knew anything about computers and assumed it was all just nerdmagic but learning about Computers has been totally amazing! This is a fantastic series!!! You guys rock!
"Nerdmagic"... lol
We just sacrifice our chips to the magic smoke god and hope all our electrons don't fall out.
+
Upcycle Electronics CHIPS FOR THE CHIP GOD, TRANSISTORS FOR THE TRANSISTOR THRONE
Stay curious, bruh
I can't get enough of this series, the presenter is great and the content very easy to follow.
Congratulations for the good work CC!
Carrie Anne, you are such expert in the topic, and eloquent explaining it, that you make this complex topic really straight forward and easy to coprenhed. Plus you fill every video with your charismatic jokes and good mood it really makes learning CS a super enjoyable experience!
Thank you very much for making this! Has helped and motivated me and thousands of others a lot!
I am proud of humanity seeing they invented such a complicated something
Your enthusiasm is what makes these videos tolerable, with all the information in a short video would be mind boggling but managed to make fun to watch
You rock girl!!!!
This is awesome! I unfortunately found this video quite late, as I see it’s 5 years old. I have been working with integrated circuits for 9 years now and I’ll just say those 7 nanometer transistors are tricky!
So, I've spent dozens of hours learning the details of this procress, and truely grocking why each step was needed. But watching this animation, I realize that I've never seen a good video that demonstrates the process. The modern assembly process is so self-contained and masked off that it makes for really boring video. But someone needs to do this, as you describe it, using the old slow methods that pioneered this field. I don't think that exists on TH-cam right now.
I have done work in photolithographic development, and this is a good quick summary.
This video answered a question I asked in an earlier video's comment feed. THANK YOU SO MUCH I LEARNED SOMETHING INCREDIBLE TODAY. Multiple incredible things, actually. Love this series! Keep it going!
These is the most complicated instructions for making a sandwich I've ever heard.
*are
are* ;)
*are
"is" is african vernacular english and is correct in that aspect
Funny. Also it is *are and not *is for your second letter.
The integrated circuits were really import to developing most of advanced technologies we already know, also things that have become such an important part of our lifes, like the smartphones. Very nice and explanatory video!
Its worth noting that the actual processing speed hasn't sped up in the last 2 decades, as in the early 00"s the clock speed hit its cap because of temperature. The efforts of more transistors are used to increase parallel processing, and the speedup for that is subject to Amdahl's law.
I know you'll probably pass this up, but, you are my favorite Crash Course personality to watch while drinking vodka tonics. Best. Voice. EVER.
Really though, thanks.
Great video as usual, but I just have one question: Who is USB's father?
A floppy disk seems to be the most common version
username •••••••• Serial Port
firewire, ieee 1394
And who is USB's mother?
Like most general use connector these day, it's not made by one company or someone but a group, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_Implementers_Forum, like HDMI,.Intel or Apple think they can go alone with their firewire, thunderbolt and stuff, but now USB with the alternate mode can pass Thunderbolt, PCI Express, HDMI, DisplayPort, ... and stuff, it is reallly neat
I absolutely ❤️ this series !
I love these videos! When I was deciding between majors it was between computer science and two others. I never regretted not choosing computer science (not because I think it's uninteresting but because I'm equally satisfied with my current major) but I still want to learn about it, even if it is a a more hobbyish level, so these videos are a godsend
I work at APCT and this is exactly what we do. I work on the line that coats the boards with gold.
This course is nothing short of amazing... look forward to it every week.
I like this presenters' demeanour +1 for smiles and just the right amount of enthusiasm.
That triple pun at the end....I don't know whether I'm proud or exasperated by it :P
I can Si a few Moore pun opportunities, but MOSt people's patience for them would drain away.
Either way, it was pretty dope.
This is a great series! I excited for the next episode. Carrie Anne is such a joy to watch!
This series are so great, thanks awesome Carrie Anne and her team
I adore the people who made this. Thanks for making my Computer Organization class easier to understand!
Your enthusiasm for tech is clearly visible through the way you talk😃
This series and the astronomy one are amazing. Thanks Carrie Anne and Phil Plait!!!!
Beautiful video, as always. Keep on with the fantastic work!
Amazing - I am not even studying toward engineering or sciences, but I understood what you meant, that is how good you are.
While I was watching this video, I just kept thinking "Ohh you've got be kidding me". A billion transistors!!!.
Finally back to hardware yayyyyyy!
I subbed to crash course when he had like 200k subs and then forgot about it. I rediscovered the channel now and he has 6million subs wow! Congrats
I can't believe guys, be,caze premium video in free.
Really we win actually we have crash course
This was a DOPE episode! There's a very real chance that QUANTUM Computing will blow up huge (if it's not already) and become commercially successful. It's the only logical next step to physical transistors.
미셜비 we can add two single digit numbers, so.... It's working... Ish
+*_-TheOlian04-_* Last I heard a quantum computer could count and operate with 4 bits
a Shame the Damned thing takes Up an entire Laboratory
So maybe One Day in the future
幸好有動畫幫助我理解，講解的非常仔細
The facts which i get on this chanel are really amazing at one place....i really love it.
“Researchers have been predicting the end of Moore’s law for decades.”
*Laughs in Intel 13th gen*
I feel so insignificant in front of these genius innovations...
i love this series, and crash course in general! thanks for doing it and spreading your knowledge :)
I usually watch videos like these at 2x speed... but there's so much info here I had to slow it down to .75x to understand.
The puns, oh gosh...
It was precious ♥
I'm just fascinated by how simply this was explained
Still recovering from the pun storm at the end.
I know it's not your topic, but it would be interesting to do an episode on the environmental consequences of all that acid washing of chips in Silicon Valley back in the day.
I wonder why people give these videos a thumbs down.
People majoring in Computer Science who are bitter that they failed their class because they thought they could skip all the lectures and just watch CC-CS instead, only to discover that freshman Comp-Sci programs involve actually learning how to code. That's right flunky, shake that thumbs down harder, boy!
Alf Onso I have a theory: Human error such as touching/clicking by mistake.
There might be some real dislikes thought.
Humans are dicks (even some who don't have one).
because people think it makes them feel important to dislike something thats universally accurate and well made
According to TH-cam the vast majority of dislikes on videos are due to misclicks and children who press random buttons. Number of dislikes usually scales with views.
To add on the limit of Moore's Law. At some point in the future making the transistors smaller cannot be achieved since then the size of a transistor will be in the order of a few atom. However, Moore's Law does not directly have anything to do with the size of a transistor, but with the number of transistors per IC. This can also be achieved by other methods like 3D-stacking of transistors. For those curious, I would advise to google a bit, there is plenty of information on the topic available.
Thank you so much for doing this! Learning so much more than my actual computer science degree...
I wouldn't have been able to tell that those last 3 puns at the end were actually puns if it weren't for the subtitles emphasising them 😂.
What a great video, actually fun to watch. Thanks!
Masked... resolve.... *dyeing* to know.....
IC what you did there.
Nice.
Noyce
Any MOORE puns guys?
Sadnehs Could anyone please explain the puns? I didn’t get them >
nice one!
What a nice and comprehensive episode. So, is there a "sequel" episode planned, that explains some of the ways scientist try in state of the art science to tackle the inevitable end of Moore's law? I'm thinking of spintronics and fields like that...
You had all those puns just festering inside you right at the end, didn't you? xD
Too funny: I wanted Moore!
now i understand why she reiterated... "computers are NOT magical"!
It really is "mind-melting" :D
Could see this being a historic episode
Damn, I need to watch this again at some point. This was an intense video.
Really great episode; Normally I'm much more interested in software but I totally agree that it's important to know something about hardware
Great channel, very informative!👏🏾👏🏾👍🏿👍🏿
You guys are the reason why I won't be a complete idiot when I go back to school
11:02 Apple's M1 Ultra chip HAS 114 BILLION TRANSISTORS. Even more than the newer M2 Max... Mindblowing.
You're absolutely fun to watch!
Thanks great And informative as I'm just getting into Dies and Photolithography
Almost forgot to give a thumb up, damn. Excellent series!
Thank you for this series, it's a great introduction. One small complaint: episode 16 is missing from the playlist.
Surprised no one said the obvious.
You know...
That this episode was *DOPE* !
Aaand with that, I'll let myself out. :)
Another great video by Carrie and team. Thank you for the tutorial.
Are you going to make episodes on Computer Science fields? Like Database Systems, Natural Language Processing, Machine Learning, etc.
Over 3 billion transistor in a area of 1x1 cm, that incredible. But while I watch this video, there was one thought that come to me: this is so complex that 90% of the population don't know and can't understand it. Then what happen if one day the system collapse? If an extinction event happen, when the factory and the small number of people who understand all this is gone then our world - the world of electronic - will be over in the blink of an eyes. Scary thought that keep me up at night.
This video was a.m.a.z.i.n.g, thank you for the free knowledge! 😃
thank you for this video i used this for my school project :)
Fantastic episode!!
i have to watch every vide3o 3 time to understand. but love this series.
I'm loving this series :) Very usefull and well explained. Good job!
This video deserves more than one thumb up from me. Thank You
Came here after reading a section of Kurzweil. This gives that small section clarity for the unfamiliar 🙂
12:20 "whether if it will be ever commercially feasible it will be (masked) in mystery, but maybe we will be able to (resolve) it the future, I am (dying) to know."
very punny
Hey your videos are amazing! Learning a lot! Greetings from Costa Rica! :)
amazing episode!!!!
That’s a genius advert for the ic by Westinghouse at 3.07.
Your math is blowing my mind.
But you explained in very detailed format ie atom
My Skype didn't was open. OWNED !!
"Instead of a photo of a hamster eating a tiny burrito." Ahahaha! I died!
superb video!!!
Awesome video
This is a great show, thanks for making it.
Wow this is great thanks, learned a lot
"USB, I AM YOUR FATHER" i want to see whats under that label ... aahhm.. i mean below that label. :)
Very enthusiastic video. First time i have seen your channel. subbed.
this is a really great informative video. However, you forget to mention the third reason which further miniaturization of such ICs may face. every transistor is fabricated over the Si wafer which itself is a electrical conductor through which current/electrons are traveling. These results in local HOT-SPOT of nanometer size. the heat flux density over these Hot-spot is expected to go beyond 1000W/cm^2 in 2020 which needs to be dissipate for the successful operation of ICs otherwise these electronic components will fail.
great episode
When she stated Quantum Tunneling it blew my mind
Great Episode! Neural Networks next plz :3
Great video! Thums up.
That was a great video.
Good job
Who else wants to see Lego integrated circuits?
You’re awesome!! 😎😎
OMG. You're brilliant
thank you for the knowledge Mam.
first episode i've ever seen on this channel! love it! BTW: not the kind of guy to leave a comment, so, thumbs up!
PS: not like you need it with almost 10M subs :-P
10M subs? Have I been living under a rock ... ?
Artificial intelligence is going to help us develop way more efficient chip designs. It's just the kind of problem those algorithms are good at.
Also Moores law has been happening long before even vacuum tubes, and the will continue past modern transistors. It's actually a "law" about the pace of information technology. Going all the way back to writing or earlier.
nice information knowledge