Definition: microchip art

A tiny graphic image that is drawn and etched into the chip by the designer just for fun. Also called "silicon art" and "silicon doodles," such images are rarely discovered unless someone happens to be looking at the chip under a microscope.

From the 1970s to the 1990s, minuscule images of a smiley face, dragon, airplane, horse and other objects were occasionally etched into empty areas of the chip. The practice is long gone, primarily because chip design is mostly automated today and there may be precious little unused space. See chip and software art.

Microchip Art

The duck was embedded in a Siemens microprocessor and the windmill was in a CAM chip from Music Semiconductors (see content-addressable memory). (Images courtesy of Chipworks Inc.)