"From Sand to Silicon – How Modern Microchips Are Made"
Astronomy for Non-Astronomers
- Datum: 16.04.2026
- Uhrzeit: 12:00 - 13:00
- Vortragende(r): Alex Urban (Engineer – ESO)
- In the spirit of bringing our astronomers and engineers closer together, the AFNA organisers are delighted to open up our speaker lineup to our engineering colleagues. We are therefore thrilled to host our first session in this new format next Thursday, 16th April, with a presentation by Alex Urban, an electronics engineer at ESO.
- Ort: ESO Garching
- Raum: Auditorium Eridanus (ESO HQE, Garching)
An astronomy talk for non-astronomers is scheduled for next week on 16 April, from 12:00 to 13:00 CEST, as a hybrid meeting in the Eridanus auditorium and online.
Abstract:
It’s the most complex manufacturing process on Earth, but it starts with the simplest ingredient: sand. Every day, billions of microchips are produced using light and chemistry to power everything from your toaster to your car, from your smartphone to the most advanced AI models.
Join the presentation for a visual, step-by-step journey through a high-tech chip factory. We’ll explore what’s inside those little black squares and how we manage to build things so small they are invisible to the human eye, yet powerful enough to run our entire civilization. If you’ve ever looked at one of these tiny chips and asked, "How does it actually do that?", this talk is for you.