9 Mar
2003
9 Mar
'03
6:37 a.m.
Dave Wilson writes:
.
My interest is in collecting whole, undiced silicon
wafers. These
are much more accessible for research and the interest does not
conflict with those of other people.
I think they're interesting, and have considered picking some up
when I've seen them. Of course I've only seen them on eBay, and
living near Boston I guess my only local source might conceivably
be the DEC fab out in (I think) Hudson that got sold to Intel when
Palmer gutted the company. Oops, didn't mean to start that thread
again! ;^)
Are there other interested people out there? If this
site is not
the best for this sort of discussion can you recommend a better
one?
I haven't run across anyone systematically collecting wafers. The
main question I'd have is, where's the supply? If there's not a
large supply of available wafers, how many collectors can there be?
Having opened my mouth and said that, someone will probably tell
me that fab-rich places in Arizona, California, Oregon, and Texas
are using them as wall decorations or something...
9 Mar
9 Mar
7:24 a.m.
Steve Jones wrote:
Having opened my mouth and said that, someone will
probably tell
me that fab-rich places in Arizona, California, Oregon, and Texas
are using them as wall decorations or something...
The ultimate trophy: Design an
IC, make it work on first silicon. Take one
of the first wafers and get it sealed or laminated (or whatever). Frame it
on the wall, with a metal plate underneath: "This die contains [n]
[suchandsuch] devices. The original production run worked flawlessly on
first silicon. Design team: [whoever]".
My sole aim in life is to take part in the design of a microprocessor, have
it run on first silicon and have an entire silicon wafer full of the chips
on the wall at home :-)
If only VLSI design was as easy as designing a computer :-)
Later.
--
Phil.
philpem(a)dsl.pipex.com
http://www.philpem.dsl.pipex.com/
7:41 a.m.
Philip Pemberton wrote:
The ultimate trophy: Design an IC, make it work on
first silicon. Take one
of the first wafers and get it sealed or laminated (or whatever). Frame it
on the wall, with a metal plate underneath: "This die contains [n]
[suchandsuch] devices. The original production run worked flawlessly on
first silicon. Design team: [whoever]".
My sole aim in life is to take part in the design of a microprocessor, have
it run on first silicon and have an entire silicon wafer full of the chips
on the wall at home :-)
If only VLSI design was as easy as designing a computer :-)
Well TTL is easy to design with. Feel free to take any of my TTL
designs (when finished) and cast it into silicon. Note once I get
my TTL computer design debuged and built ( the slow and $$$ parts )
I would like to do a VLSI design just to see how good or bad
the design is compared to other real chips.
Ben.
8:01 a.m.
ben franchuk wrote:
Well TTL is easy to design with. Feel free to take any
of my TTL
designs (when finished) and cast it into silicon. Note once I get
my TTL computer design debuged and built ( the slow and $$$ parts )
I would like to do a VLSI design just to see how good or bad
the design is compared to other real chips.
If I had a few Xilinx CPLDs (the ones
that can be programmed over a Jtag
link) and a programming cable I would. Anyone got some spare XC9500 series
devices? PIC16F628 MCUs are fun to play with, but designing my own CPU from
scratch sounds like even more fun :-)
Later.
--
Phil.
philpem(a)dsl.pipex.com
http://www.philpem.dsl.pipex.com/
9:47 a.m.
It's true, fab-rich places in Arizona, California,
Oregon, and Texas are using wafers as wall
decorations!
At least I am...
10:50 a.m.
steven wrote:
It's true, fab-rich places in Arizona,
California,
Oregon, and Texas are using wafers as wall
decorations!
Hmm... I must remember to try and find a silicon wafer on Ebay...
Shame
there never seem to be any on Ebay UK...
Let's see... If I put the wafer under a microscope and get some photos, I
should be able to ID the chip. Then put it in a picture frame complete with
label... Hmm...
I'd love to track down one of the East German wafers that were mentioned on
The Silicon Zoo (www.micro.magnet.fsu.edu/creatures) - they had some that
they extracted a picture of a fox from. With a decent scope and a
half-decent digicam (either my Oly or one of the Sony Mavica cameras I have
access to) I should be able to get some pretty decent pictures. Picture
this - a wafer with all the silicon "doodles" or "creatures" printed
off
underneath, complete with a "This die contains..." label... Hmm...
Later.
--
Phil.
philpem(a)dsl.pipex.com
http://www.philpem.dsl.pipex.com/
11:41 a.m.
steven wrote:
It's true, fab-rich places in Arizona, California,
Oregon, and Texas are using wafers as wall
decorations!
At least I am...
Me too. There's a ton of them floating around from the old Mostek fab
and TI.
James
--
http://webpages.charter.net/jrice54/classiccomp2.html
12:38 p.m.
On Sun, 9 Mar 2003, James Rice wrote:
steven wrote:
In real life, I work for a company which fabs semiconductors. Removing
wafers, even defective ones, from the premises without authorization is
a swift and sure way to end ones career.
Steve
It's true, fab-rich places in Arizona,
California,
Oregon, and Texas are using wafers as wall
decorations!
Me too. There's a ton of them floating around from the old Mostek fab
and TI. 
1:39 p.m.
At 18:33 03/09/2003 -0500, Steven N. Hirsch wrote:
On Sun, 9 Mar 2003, James Rice wrote:
On a slightly different take... How would one get permission to remove a
few defective wafers solely for the sake of collectibility? Not many fabs
up here in northern Michigan -- on the Canadian border... ;-)
Is ePay my only hope of acquiring one???
Laterz,
Roger "Merch" Merchberger
steven wrote:
In real life, I work for a company which fabs semiconductors. Removing
wafers, even defective ones, from the premises without authorization is
a swift and sure way to end ones career. It's true, fab-rich places in Arizona,
California,
Oregon, and Texas are using wafers as wall
decorations!
Me too. There's a ton of them floating around from the old Mostek fab
and TI. 
1:53 p.m.
> It's true, fab-rich places in Arizona,
California,
> Oregon, and Texas...
Silicon Valley is the obvious choice for an outlet of these.
Anyone who is a regular customer of "The Foothill" should
speak up on list. I patronized them, a long time back, for
just over two years... got some wafers, and, some large
chunks of the raw Silicon ingots too.
MIT flea will have wafers too, but at about 1/3 the frequency.
John A.
11:27 a.m.
Having opened my mouth and said that, someone will
probably tell
me that fab-rich places in Arizona, California, Oregon, and Texas
are using them as wall decorations or something...
I think the only wafer's I've seen out in the wild are some wafers
from Tektronix. Back in the 70's when I was in
school someone from
Tektronix visited us, and everyone got a wafer in a little
plastic
wafer holder. I know I've still got mine, I'm just not sure where
it's at, it's all of about 2 1/2".
Zane
5:04 p.m.
On Sun, 9 Mar 2003, Steve Jones wrote:
The San Jose Tech Museum's gift shop has them for sale at prices that
won't break you too badly. IIRC, it was somewhere in the $10-$30 range,
depending on their sizes. It looks like they're available for sale
online: <http://store.thetech.org/slicofsilval.html>
Of course, you can't get to pick and choose them like you would if you
were actually there. When I last visited, they had a variety of wafers
available.
-brian.
Dave Wilson writes:
My interest is
in collecting whole, undiced silicon wafers. These
are much more accessible for research and the interest does not
conflict with those of other people.
[...]
I haven't run across anyone systematically collecting wafers. The
main question I'd have is, where's the supply? If there's not a
large supply of available wafers, how many collectors can there be?
Having opened my mouth and said that, someone will probably tell
me that fab-rich places in Arizona, California, Oregon, and Texas
are using them as wall decorations or something... 
5:29 p.m.
Keep checking eBay for them as I picked up several there for good prices.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Brian Chase" <vaxzilla(a)jarai.org>
To: <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Sunday, March 09, 2003 10:01 PM
Subject: Re: Collecting silicon wafers
On Sun, 9 Mar 2003, Steve Jones wrote:
The San Jose Tech Museum's gift shop has them for sale at prices that
won't break you too badly. IIRC, it was somewhere in the $10-$30 range,
depending on their sizes. It looks like they're available for sale
online: <http://store.thetech.org/slicofsilval.html>
Of course, you can't get to pick and choose them like you would if you
were actually there. When I last visited, they had a variety of wafers
available.
-brian.
Dave Wilson writes:
My
interest is in collecting whole, undiced silicon wafers. These
are much more accessible for research and the interest does not
conflict with those of other people.
[...]
I haven't run across anyone systematically collecting wafers. The
main question I'd have is, where's the supply? If there's not a
large supply of available wafers, how many collectors can there be?
Having opened my mouth and said that, someone will probably tell
me that fab-rich places in Arizona, California, Oregon, and Texas
are using them as wall decorations or something...
7767
days inactive
7767
days old
12 comments
11 participants
participants (11)
-
allain＠panix.com -
bfranchuk＠jetnet.ab.ca -
classiccmp＠crash.com -
healyzh＠aracnet.com -
jrice54＠charter.net -
jrkeys＠concentric.net -
philpem＠dsl.pipex.com -
shirsch＠adelphia.net -
tosteve＠yahoo.com -
vaxzilla＠jarai.org -
zmerch＠30below.com