// FREE MINI-COURSE · nm
Chips
How Chips Really Work — The chips inside your phone and laptop: chipsets, nanometres, how chips are made, explained in 20 seconds.
3 of 4 lessons out · next: Why chips get hot (and how your phone cools them)
▶ Start lesson 1- 01
Chipset: your phone's whole computer is ONE chipA phone chipset is an SoC: CPU, GPU, NPU, ISP and 5G modem on one die with RAM stacked on top, all working together on every photo.
EP.35 · 20 s - 02
From SAND to CHIP: how silicon becomes a chipSand (SiO2) is purified to 9-nines silicon, grown into one crystal, sliced into wafers, doped into P and N, and printed with light into hundreds of chips.
EP.36 · 20 s - 03
What does '3 nm' really mean?Why chip 'nm' numbers are names for a process generation, not the size of any one part, and how small transistors really are.
EP.42 · 24 s - 04 COMING NEXTWhy chips get hot (and how your phone cools them)Every transistor switch spends a little energy as heat; billions switching billions of times a second add up, so phones spread it with copper, graphite and vapour chambers and slow down (throttle) when hot.
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