finding ten billion transistors on the ground
I was biking a few days ago. In the roadway, I spotted what looked like a mobile phone. Once it was safe I went over, and sure enough, a phone. I wasn’t sure what type of phone it was but I picked it up.
The screen is in bad shape, but when I got home, I plugged it in and it seems to power up, which is a good sign. I deconstructed it, and found that most components are in excellent shape, even the battery, which does not show any signs of mechanical damage. The camera’s logic board (top, middle, with the 4 cameras) is undamaged.
I’ve figured out that this is a Samsung A21.
- System on chip Mediatek MT6765 Helio P35 (12nm)
- Samsung Exynos 850 (S5E3830) (8nm) - Nacho version
- CPU Octa-core: 4x2.35 GHz Cortex-A53 & 4x1.8 GHz Cortex-A53
- GPU PowerVR GE8320
- Memory 3 GB, or 6 GB
- Storage 32 GB, 64 GB or 128 GB
This thing was LYING ON THE GROUND
Can you imagine? This thing has 8 little CPUs, plus many more auxiliary video, audio, image, etc. processors. It generates signals at 2.35 GHz: that’s BILLIONs of little electrical pings PER SECOND. It represents millions of hours of intelligent design by some of the smartest people on the planet. It uses mankind’s most advanced manufacturing processes to lay out and place, at nanometer scale, the billions of transistors and other structures into a material so pure that perhaps doesn’t exist in that form anywhere else in the galaxy.
Now imagine that you are visiting an alien civilization. Maybe they’re 20 feet tall, so you’re closer to the ground than they are. You’re walking around in the dirt of one of their cities, and you discover an artifact with technological complexity that is advanced almost beyond comprehension. They threw this away!
The world we live in.