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Die Shrink: How Intel Scaled Down the 8086 Processor

posted by Fnord666 on Sunday June 28 2020, @07:29PM   Printer-friendly
from the dried-it-on-high-heat? dept.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

http://www.righto.com/2020/06/die-shrink-how-intel-scaled-down-8086.html

The revolutionary Intel 8086 microprocessor was introduced 42 years ago this month so I've been studying its die.1 I came across two 8086 dies with different sizes, which reveal details of how a die shrink works. The concept of a die shrink is that as technology improved, a manufacturer could shrink the silicon die, reducing costs and improving performance. But there's more to it than simply scaling down the whole die. Although the internal circuitry can be directly scaled down,2 external-facing features can't shrink as easily. For instance, the bonding pads need a minimum size so wires can be attached, and the power-distribution traces must be large enough for the current. The result is that Intel scaled the interior of the 8086 without change, but the circuitry and pads around the edge of the chip were redesigned.

The photo below shows an 8086 chip from 1979, and a version with a visibly smaller die from 1986.3 (The ceramic lids have been removed to show the silicon dies inside.) In the updated 8086, the internal circuitry was scaled to about 64% of the original size by length, so it took 40% of the original area. The die as a whole wasn't reduced as much; it was about 54% of the original area. (The chip's package was unchanged, the 40-pin DIP package commonly used for microprocessors of that era.)

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by takyon on Sunday June 28 2020, @09:47PM (2 children)

    by takyon (881) <takyonNO@SPAMsoylentnews.org> on Sunday June 28 2020, @09:47PM (#1013843) Journal

    http://www.righto.com/p/about-ken-shirriff.html [righto.com]

    I'm interested in computer history and reverse engineering old chips. I am currently restoring a Xerox Alto.

    Some projects:
    Wrote the Arduino IRremote library for infrared remotes.
    Attempted Bitcoin mining on a 55 year old IBM 1401 punch card mainframe.
    Got six symbols added to Unicode including the Bitcoin symbol (₿).
    Wrote an article on the first microprocessors for IEEE Spectrum.
    Gave a talk on reverse-engineering old integrated circuits at the Hackaday Superconference (YouTube).

    How dare he write an article about old Intel chips!

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  • (Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Monday June 29 2020, @10:52PM (1 child)

    by linkdude64 (5482) on Monday June 29 2020, @10:52PM (#1014290)

    Please enlighten me on the work history of the authors behind the last several articles you read online. Are you intimately familiar with them? I have no idea who Ken Sheriff is, and even if I did, his name wasn't in TFS, AFAIK.

    • (Score: 2) by takyon on Monday June 29 2020, @11:32PM

      by takyon (881) <takyonNO@SPAMsoylentnews.org> on Monday June 29 2020, @11:32PM (#1014302) Journal

      Weak. Maybe you shouldn't say stuff like:

      I almost can't believe how petty and stupid Intel is, to actually be paying journalists under the table to write stories about their die-shrinking accomplishments 40 years ago or whatever

      Unless you have something other than your feelz to back it up.

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