How microchips are made
These tiny, silicon devices power the modern world
Workers in China on the production line of silicon wafers
© Getty
Robert Noyce was one of the brains behind the modern microchip
© Getty
From the mobile phone in your pocket to the computers that make spaceflight possible, virtually no piece of modern electronic equipment would function without the humble microchip. Also called a chip, a computer chip, an integrated circuit or IC, a microchip is just a set of electronic circuits on a small, flat piece of silicon.
Sitting on top of the chip are components called transistors, which act like tiny electrical switches that can turn a current on or off. You can fit a huge amount of transistors on a chip, with one the size of a fingernail containing billions of them. The chips themselves are made from silicon, which is in turn made from a type of sand called silica. The sand, which is made from silicon dioxide, is melted down and cast to form a big cylinder known as an ingot, which is then sliced up.