A new generation is uncovering the tiny doodles left by engineers on old microchips
An owl. A sharky looking bullet. The Hindu deity Ganesh. The Yin and Yang sign. All painstakingly selected and etched onto a microchip that measures about an inch square. Each microscopic silicon doodle was the handiwork of engineers at Qualcomm Incorporated, a San Diego-based company that creates wireless technology-related products and services. The engineers slipped the drawings into Qualcomm's Q1650 data decoder with care not to disturb any of the chip's functions.
They were purposeless etchings, never meant to be uncovered.
These doodles, also known as silicon art, chip graffiti or chip art, and dozens others like it, are remnants of tech history—from Silicon Valley's infancy to the early 2000s—when innovationThey'd etch them on chips that may end up in your cellphone, laptop or calculator. They spent hours crafting them, even though they were frowned upon by those in the C Suite.
