I just discovered the forum a couple nights ago and have been reading posts non-stop. I love the work everyone is doing. As a kid I remember taking apart a computer and marveling at the chips, wondering about the 'magic' contained within. In particular, I remember opening up a machine I found 'dumpster diving' and finding the MOS logo. That logo stuck with me as something special. Every time I see it I get a warm nostalgic feeling. I'm not all that technically adept, I have a general feel for basic analog electronics, am comfortable with computers, and enjoy learning about chemistry but, am not deeply involved in any of them.

This is my first post and hope that I'm not asking a question that's been answered in detail already. I searched and found some related material but, not a specific thread on the subject. If the thread is out there and I missed it, I apologize in advance for the clutter.

As the subject states, I'm interested in learning how one would go about photographing wafers and masks. I have no particular experience and am not a photographer or artist. Having seen beautiful photos I'd love to know how it's done. Since I'm starting from zero, any info even simple suggestions, will be appreciated.

Thinking through things I imagine that there are two tracts one could follow; the path to artistic photos or the path leading to high-dimensional-accuracy photo-realistic images. On the artistic side I suspect that full spectrum light, maybe from different angles would produce nice effect. On the other hand lighting for accurate photos would need to be single point-source and for masks would likely need to be back lit.

I have some 4" wafers and masks that I'd eventually like to photo and share. As I said before, I don't have any special equipment so I'm in need of suggestions on how to clean the masks and reticles without damaging them. Ultimately, I'd like to get high resolution photos of the masks with highly defined lines without camera flare or distortion so that people can use something like Photoshop to 'stack' the layers and build a 3D representation of the chip the masks originally created.

If you have any thoughts to share related to cleaning, preservation, photo, or other experience you think I could benefit from, please do chime in and share.

Thanks!

I haven't any special experience related to your topic to share but I like to welcome you to the forum - I'm sure you will get further information soon!


Regards,
Arne

The "Visual 6502" folks have done die images of a technical nature for several famous chips. The process is destructive, because the deeper layers are hidden behind the shallower ones, and they needed to see all the layers in order to build an accurate model of the chip as it was actually manufactured.

There are some details behind that link that hint at the equipment used for the actual imaging. Essentially, it is a DSLR camera attached to an ordinary optical microscope. There are microscopes available which are specifically designed for photography. I think for some dies, they also pan the objective plate and use several images stitched together.

Welcome, Rescue!

First, please don't try to clean anything! Lots of research needed first.

With 4" wafers there's a good chance the process used was coarse enough that you won't need to remove any metal. In any case, you'd start by photographing as-is: once you've shared high resolution photos of the things as they are, it'll become obvious whether any deprocessing is called for.

Usually, I think, one uses a metallurgical microscope, which illuminates through the lens from above - an ordinary microscope usually lights from below, (or you might try to use ambient light, but that's not going to be easy.) If using a microscope, normally you'll have little field of view, so you will need to take tens of well-overlapped photos and stitch them. An X-Y stage can help here. But just one photo will give clues as to how suitable the image will be for reverse-engineering.

It's possible that a good camera in macro mode will produce useful images: certainly it will be able to produce good images, and perhaps beautiful images. A tripod will help, as will very careful focussing.

Maybe see revaldinho's gallery, and note the captions.
https://revaldinho.smugmug.com/Vintage- ... d-Circuits

As for photographing masks and the like, it might be that a normal microscope would be the thing. As you're photographing something which is reflective and with holes, the background and the surroundings might be important, to get contrast.

It'll be interesting to see what you come up with!

Try https://siliconpr0n.org/wiki

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6502 addict