Maroon Bells (Darkfield)

Maroon Bells (Darkfield)

Normally when we think about computer chips, the last thing that comes to mind is the inherent beauty of nature's vast wilderness. You can imagine our surprise when we stumbled across this silicon rendition of Colorado's Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness Area on a Hewlett-Packard integrated circuit. The image is difficult to decipher without help, so we have included the original photograph of these mountains below:

Maroon Bells Wilderness Area

The caption at the bottom of the pad, beneath the mountains, reads "The Maroon Bells near Aspen, Colorado". This chip was designed by Hewlett-Packard's Colorado Springs Division for use in the 56000 series "analog feel" digital oscilloscopes introduced in the early 1990s. The code name for this chip is "Aspen", which is an acronym for Acquisition Signal Processing ENgine. Other doodles on the Aspen chip are the disclaimer and the Aspen leaf featured elsewhere in the Silicon Zoo.

View this silicon artwork under differential interference contrast and brightfield illumination.


© 1995-2022 by Michael W. Davidson and The Florida State University. All Rights Reserved. No images, graphics, software, scripts, or applets may be reproduced or used in any manner without permission from the copyright holders. Use of this website means you agree to all of the Legal Terms and Conditions set forth by the owners.
This website is maintained by our
Graphics & Web Programming Team
in collaboration with Optical Microscopy at the
National High Magnetic Field Laboratory.
Last modification: Wednesday, Mar 03, 2004 at 04:30 PM
Access Count Since June 3, 2000: 19066