 |
These are 13 highly zoomed images of circuit boards showing strange pictures and words in areas of the chip.
This practice used to be very common in software design, several companies do this for fun or to be unique, they call this “easter eggs”.
But software engineers aren’t the only ones planting secret easter eggs in their products.
So, the question is what secret is hiding on your microchip?
Comic Book Characters on Volvo Circuit Boards
A factory worker somewhere had a little fun and left a Volvo owner a little “Nancy and Sluggo” printed on the back of a Volvo instrument cluster circuit board.link
Beatles lyrics printed on a circuit board
If you look carefully along the edge of the PCB, you will notice beatles lyrics printed right on the board. “She loves you, yeah yeah yeah”. The first part runs along the horizontal edge, and the second along the vertical, back edge. link
The Buddha of Compassion on a Circuit board
Chenresig, the Tibetan Buddhist Buddha of Compassion, printed on a circuit board inside of a synthesizer. These are only visible when the board is completely removed from the front panel. link
Mister T on a Integrated Circuit
Mister T in a T1 transceiver integrated circuit. Notice the medallion says “T1″. Who said hardware engineers didn’t have a sense of humor?. link
California License Plate
This California license plate was found on the MIPS R4000 microprocessor that powered many workstations and servers in the early 1990s.link
Where’s Waldo
Ever had trouble finding Waldo in the comic strips? Try finding him on a computer chip if you really want to scramble your eyeballs. link
Marvin The Martian
Marvin the Martian appears on an image sensor chip used on the Mars rovers. link
The Apollo Mission Lunar Lander and the U.S.S. Enterprise
The earliest known images are on Texas Instruments chips from the late 1960s or early 1970s, featuring a sailboat, the Apollo mission lunar lander and the U.S.S. Enterprise starship from the “Star Trek” TV series.link
Snoopy
The silicon version of Snoopy was discovered by Richard Piotter of New Ulm, in a 4-inch wafer. link
Mickey Mouse frozen in time
This unique version of Mickey Mouse with his hands pointing to 12 and 7, creating a miniature silicon clock fixed in time, was found on the Mostek 5017 alarm clock integrated circuit. link
Hieroglyphics Legal Warnings
Not all the discoveries have been artistic. Some of them have nonsensical legal warnings. The hieroglyphics experts have not yet deciphered the entire body of text, but the phrases “No purchase necessary”, “Keep away from fire”, and “not for resale” are clearly visible in the magnified portion.
This disclaimer, probably the smallest ever written, was found on a Hewlett-Packard “Aspen” chip used in digital oscilloscopes in the late 1980s and early 1990s.link
Can of Worms
Greg Rohde, placed this doodle on a integrated circuit to symbolize the numerous problems encountered during the design. Often, these problems required one of the circuit engineers to “open up another can of worms” to solve design problems. link
University Sports Logos
Florida State University sports logos on the MIPS R12000 microprocessor. These logos are so small that over 10 billion would fit into the Chief Osceola logo painted in the “center” of the football field at Doak Campbell Stadium. link
|