How a CPU is made.

[inachu]

Woah!

This is way cool!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qm67wbB5GmI


Todays process they have even more control of the heat produced when making the chip and back in the day the various temps of the wafer at the center VS outside near the rim of the wafer would introduce different clock speeds. Which is why one cpu sold for 400Mhz and another would be 450Mhz back in the day.

 

[videogames101]

It's one of the most interesting industries that exists today imo. The technology is always being pushed, from research universities down to the fab floors. Process variation like you mention is still a major factor in making and designing CPU's, although it comes from factors apart from temperature. For example, with decreasing transistor size the number of dopant atoms that get deposited in the channel of a transistor has become a significant form of variation which can wreck havoc on clockspeed.

What's most incredible to me is how invisible it is to consumers (and really to everyone in the chain). The number of layers of abstraction that gets you there is quite amazing: chemistry, device physics, circuit design, cell design, place and route, HDL design, verification, microcode, firmware, operating systems, compilers, device drivers, network protocols, high level languages - you get the idea. Everyone does their own part, and somehow you end up shopping on amazon in your underwear.