Packaging
The chip you can see is only a package; the real one is a flake of silicon.
The chip you can see is only a package; the real chip is a flake of silicon thinner than a sheet of paper. Open the package: the bare chip, the die, fits on a fingernail. It was cut from a wafer 775 µm thick, ground down to a fraction of that, then glued onto a carrier whose underside holds a grid of tiny solder balls. Each ball is a connection to the board; the package is only there to protect them and carry heat away. Every chip is then tested one by one, and the failing ones are set aside. This work is done mostly in Malaysia, Taiwan and China, in plants nobody ever talks about.
Sources
- 775 µm SEMI 3D10 — Guide to Describing Materials Properties for Intermediate Wafers for Use in a 300 mm 3DS-IC Wafer Stack, SEMI, retrieved 11 October 2026.