The best, highest resolution die scans so far?

[Imgema]

These are the ones i have found, so far

80286 - http://visual6502.org/images/80286/Intel_80286_die_shot_20x_1a_9500w.jpg

And this one i found in this forum: http://www.g0b.fr/cpu/Test.htm
This second chip, i have no idea how many transistors it has so i don't know how much more advanced than the 80286 is.


My question is, are there any CPUs, more modern/advanced than these, where we can see the transistors at the same clarity? I'm not interested for older CPUs with less transistors, there are already many detailed scans for them. They don't need such high resolution or such powerful microscopes for their transistors to be visible.

The 80286 has 130.000+ transistors and a 9k x 9k scan can reveal the details but how about a 80386 or a 80486? I've seen a few good shots of the 386 die they are far too blurry compared to the 80286 shot above and any CPU die from 80486 and above (1 million transistors and counting) just isn't big enough to reveal such detail.

I know i'm asking a lot, a detailed 80486 shot would probably need a huge 1GB picture, but is it possible? How about a pentium? (and to think that modern CPUs exceed 2 billion transistors... i can't even begin to imagine how can someone design such a die)

[frag_]

The most complex cpu with transistor-level photo I am aware is PlayStation 1 CPU.
There is reverse engineering project on it, complete image is ~50k x 50k pixels.
http://psxdev.ru/download
Unfortunately most of this cpu is based on standard cells,
not very interesting, but easier to reverse than full custom design.

[Imgema]

Nice find, thanks!

[g0b]

[Imgema]

[g0b]

Anyway, the maximum resolution that can be achieved with an optical microscope (visible light) is around 0.2 micron (200 nm) so don't expect to see transistors on a P3+ die...

[Imgema]

Well, if the maximum possible is a Pentium 2, i will be happy

[CPUShack]

DEC Alphas will have very nice dies to image, BIG

[Birdman.]

Unfortunately, all DEC Alphas I've opened so far have a thick coating on their dies that only allows them reflect yellowish colors. I'll try to release my yellowish die shots as soon as I can although they don't show the structures as well as expected with only small color differences. I haven't tested yet whether that coating limits sharpness at high magnification, but they may look messy.

I think that R4400 is a very good die for high-res picture, and for example Am29050, P5 Pentium, PA-7xxx, SuperSPARC, MC68040 and TX486DLC should also look great at very high resolution. Later CPUs usually have standard cell areas and more metal layers that cover many details.

[frag_]

I have STM (Scanning Tunneling Microscope) at work
with 0.2-1.0 nm resolution (depending on the material),
it's potential winner here
But it's overkill for old dies and I don't know how to deal with modern ones.