Godzilla, King of the Monsters (Darkfield)

Godzilla, King of the Monsters (Darkfield)

Godzilla, a mythical creature first appearing in Japanese movies in 1954, was found lurking on a small pad within the circuitry of the Silicon Graphics MIPS R10000 microprocessor. Atomic testing shortly after World War II supposedly created this dinosaur-like creature. In his first movie, Godzilla terrorized Tokyo, but he eventually became the good-guy (if you can believe that) and in 1998, the King reappeared in a blockbuster motion picture released by TriStar. The wireframe rendition of Godzilla on this chip is about 40 microns in size, meaning it would take about a billion of these tiny silicon creatures to equal the size of the "real" Godzilla.

Several people have emailed us with the suggestion that this rendition of Godzilla strongly resembles the Grinch Who Stole Christmas. We agree, however the designer (Kevin Kuhn) says he intended it to be Godzilla---but it can really be anything you want it to be.

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


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