Galaxy Tab owners: inside your Android tablet is a secret message. But you’ll never find it on your own – it’s only 2.0 µm high.
The guys at Chipworks were analysing the Infineon PMB5703 chip, which provides RF communications to the tablet, in an attempt to understand its architecture. During the process of pulling the chip apart and analysing it under an electron microscope, they discovered a tiny, tiny message:
“If you can read this you are much too close”
Finding messages like this is apparently nothing new to the team at Chipworks, who also have a passion for discovering silicon art – or tiny artworks hidden within silicon chips. They have an entire gallery dedicated to them, which is worth checking out to see just what types of things engineers hide on the chips that make your gadgets work.
But most impressive of all is the geek humour from the engineers who put these messages on the chips. Knowing now that my gadgets have hidden messages from the people who made them gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling inside.