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by kragen 4195 days ago
Getting a modern die photo requires using an electron microscope or a scanning-probe microscope, because feature sizes are down to about a tenth the wavelength of visible light. That alone makes the photos look pretty different.

Modern chips also have quite a few more layers (process steps); e.g. IBM's old 0.13μm process supports 8 metal layers, not counting other steps like epitaxial growth and oxides: https://www.mosis.com/vendors/view/ibm/8rf-dm

1 comments

is there any good book to study about this ?
I don't know much about it myself, so I'm not the right person to ask. Much of the little I do know came from reading http://designinganalogchips.com/, a book by Hans Camenzind, one of the all-time great sandbenders.
I give a thumbs up for Designing Analog Chips - I found it really helpful and interesting, and it's free online at the above link.

And if you're interested in 1970s-era digital chips, I recommend Mead and Conway's "Introduction to VLSI systems" at http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/VLSI/VLSIText/VLSITex...