The Art of Failure 2010

The beauty-and creepiness-of chip defects

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Image: Tang Lei Jun
A city built entirely of gallium nitride? This Atlantis was uncovered with a focused ion beam technique, which uses a ray of ions to etch, polish, and deposit material on a sample. It won second prize. <

Just as one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, one person’s systems failure is another one’s masterpiece. This is the third year that the “Art of Failure Analysis”was featured at the IEEE International Symposium on the Physical and Failure Analysis of Integrated Circuits (IPFA). Participants submitted the most intriguing images they’d captured during chip autopsies. Favorite pictures from the collection, which range from charming to just plain creepy, were on display at the symposium from 5 to 9 July in Singapore.

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