Chip Art - Through History

These chip art images were either extracted through lapping techniques, magnification and/or Polaroid capturing. Typically chips have a unique "signature" or a identification number to recognize and expect to be logic, memory, gates, or a product of some kind. However, these signatures are the designer's, the engineer's and in some cases a company logo. They have left their mark in and for history. The chip collection is complemented with imagination which takes no space on a shelf, requires no conservation and cannot typically be exhibited.

... a historical and operational perspective on how these photographs are captured: laboratory engineers and technicians capture these images on a catch-as-catch-can basis... many of these photographs are years old and cannot be [easily] identified... the images were simply posted on a board and then [staff] went about the business at hand ... - Integrated Circuit Engineering Corporation

Check out this link for more pictures :-)