From kragen@dnaco.net Thu Jul 30 08:25:18 1998 Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1998 08:25:17 -0400 (EDT) From: Kragen To: "systalk@ml.org" Subject: Re: [ST] OT: "bill sux"... on a chip :) In-Reply-To: <199807300915.2931061.6@mail> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-Keywords: X-UID: 886 Status: O X-Status: On Thu, 30 Jul 1998, Antony T Curtis wrote: > Recently discovered on some of the latest Pentium processors... > http://www.idt.mdh.se/kpt/billsux.jpg This is a hoax. 1. The picture (without the "bill sux") is on the cover of a textbook. 2. The picture is of a chip which has no passivation layer (which is why you can see the wires), but has not had its passivation layer etched away. So this is a chip that has never left the fab. 3. The grooves on the chip surface show through the tops of all the wires -- where there's a chip-surface groove, there's a corresponding groove on top of the metal layer running across that groove. Except the wires that say "bill sux". 4. The picture was saved from Adobe Photoshop 4.0, as you can see if you open it with vi. 5. Such a set of wires would not be able to sneak past the automatic verification such things go through before being made into masks. Several people would have to approve them. 6. Someone else made a modified version which says "LINUS" in a few minutes with PhotoShop. 7. Reportedly, you can see details of the "bill sux" wires that are identical to random details of nearby wires, if you zoom in about 5 to 1. (I haven't tried this.) For more information, see . Kragen (grouchy this morning, sick of seeing misinformation posted!)