This video was reasonably good, but still required a lot of background.<p>If you want really terrific easily understood, yet totally in-depth information about integrated circuits, starting from the physics how semi-conductors actually work at the electron level, all the way up through gates and on to an entire computer, Ben Eater's videos are outstanding.<p>Most people know his work from the Breadboard computer, <a href="https://eater.net/8bit" rel="nofollow">https://eater.net/8bit</a>, where he builds an actual functioning computer, with instructions and microcode and output, from scratch on a breadboard, along with terrific explanations.<p>But that is just the tip of the iceberg. All his videos are amazing, and super easy to understand. Here is his version of how nor gates work: which is way easier to understand to me than this video:<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTu3LwpF6XI" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTu3LwpF6XI</a><p>Here is his whole channel:<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCS0N5baNlQWJCUrhCEo8WlA" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCS0N5baNlQWJCUrhCEo8WlA</a><p>and his website:<p><a href="https://eater.net" rel="nofollow">https://eater.net</a>
I studied as an EE. I struggled as a freshman to figure out how flip-flops work (building blocks of registers) when it dawned on me while in the shower that they only work due to propagation delay. What an eye openning shower that was...
I was extremely lucky to have learned ICs from a very special man who helped design/refine the concepts at PARC. Thanks to that, he was able to explain the entire course from a perspective of an "inventor".<p>This is _very_ similar to the way he taught, although we didn't have 3D representations, they were mostly transparencies taped together and layered. Very cool to see it done this way.
I understood this but I have an EE background. I feel like it would be still quite difficult to follow even for self-taught makers because some concepts were missing entirely, like the basic function of the transistors he's constantly talking about.
IC designer here. Most people struggle to grasp semiconductor circuits because they think about them in terms of voltage drops when in fact they should be thinking about them in terms of current loops. With this approach, the scales are lifted from your eyes.
Not just about integrated circuits.<p>I found best teachers are the ones who actually solved real-world problem. Only then they understood which piece of knowledge is helpful because they actually understand it.<p>Teaching is not for the theorists.
<i>How does a purposefully contaminated shard of glass wield control over electrons?</i><p>It's not a shard of glass, it's a slice of silicon monocrystal. These materials are less alike than graphite and diamond.
Neat exhibit! So sad this could be the last Maker Faire <a href="https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/05/18/attendees-bittersweet-at-what-could-be-last-bay-area-maker-faire/" rel="nofollow">https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/05/18/attendees-bittersweet...</a>
Easier, perhaps, I doubt it's easy for anyone, ever. Maybe if you work at some higher abstraction level. But just understanding those bipolar transistors is quite a challenge. You can measure them, but understading why what's measured happens...