Highlighted by purple, red, and green oblique illumination, the surface features present on a small portion of the AMD K6 microprocessor are revealed in the digital image presented below. The chip was photographed in reflected light utilizing differential interference contrast (DIC) optics on a Nikon Eclipse L200 industrial microscope.

Examine a larger version of this digital image.

The Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) K6 microprocessor line, which includes the K6-2 and K6-III chips, was first introduced in 1997 to compete with the Intel Pentium and Pentium II series. Many of the chips were fabricated on a 0.25-micrometer process and reached clock speeds of 500 megahertz and greater before being eclipsed by the Athlon processor. The K6-III design sported 21.3 million transistors and featured advanced design technology that significantly enhanced floating point intensive three-dimensional graphics and multimedia applications.

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