Re: Computers are evil dark magic? Human brain?
Paul <[email protected]> Fri, 31 Jul 2026 14:55:05 -0400
| Newsgroups | alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt |
|---|---|
| Organization | A noiseless patient Spider |
| Message-ID | <[email protected]> |
On Fri, 7/31/2026 7:35 AM, Mr. Man-wai Chang wrote: > On 7/30/2026 11:42 PM, Paul wrote: >> >> One reason the chips are inside black epoxy, is the "photoelectric effect". >> For some chips, you can connect an earphone, and you can hear the >> flow of bias current, if you shine a light on the bare silicon die. >> It is for this reason, that it should be kept dark and under the >> black epoxy, so no "circuit-upset" is caused by the photoelectric effect. >> >> An example of the photoelectric effect .... > > So human brains are NOT supposed to be exposed > to light? Holy Order? > > Well... well... well.... > > That's a different material. Conduction is ionic. The human brain is not a semiconductor. Not all of the chips underneath black epoxy are light sensitive, but enough of them are, they all got covered with the same material. There is chip scale packaging with glob top, which is used in things like digital clock time pieces. The black material is a droplet of epoxy, placed over the silicon die. For protection. Bare CPU die exist, but they're covered in thermal paste and have a heatsink on top, so light exposure is a bit limited. Paul