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- Kenton Smith: It's very rare.

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If you sat down and opened up
maybe a hundred different chips,

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you might only find one.

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And maybe not even then.

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It definitely is
like a treasure hunt.

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There's a lot of lows
as you open 'em up

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and you don't see anything

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until you hit that high
where you find the doodle.

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[groovy electronic music]

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My name is Kenton,

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and we are in my basement
in Madison, Wisconsin.

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I open up chips to extract
the silicon inside of them,

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mainly looking for chip art
or chip graffiti,

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silicon doodles that have been
left behind.

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My background
is computer engineering,

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so I've always had a passion
for computers

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and electronics in general.

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I didn't really know about
silicon chips

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until me and some friends were
walking home from some bars

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and I found a smashed cell phone
on the ground.

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And I picked it up and one
of the chips was exposed,

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and I thought,
"That's pretty cool."

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So, I brought it home

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and looked at it
under the microscope,

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and that was
sort of the catalyst

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that got me into this
microscopic world.

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It took maybe 80 or so chips
at that point,

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and I opened one of them up,

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and there was a smiley face
inside on the silicon chip.

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It was literally
an eye-opening moment.

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Completely unexpected.

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I had no idea it was gonna be
there.

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It really started the hunt
for more.

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Once I've identified the chip
that I want to open,

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it's clamping the chip
into a vice

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and then heating it up
with hot air, which can be set

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somewhere around
350 to 400 degrees Celsius.

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Remove material and eventually,

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you will expose the silicon
inside.

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Maybe my favorite is
it's a dump truck

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and it's dumping unused
circuit parts on the chip.

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So, it's sort of comical

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and I really enjoy that one
a lot.

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I'd say the majority of them

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are on the order of magnitude
of 100 micrometers,

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so very, very microscopic.

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The biggest reason that people
have given for what these are

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are that they are a way
to sign their work.

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To say, "I was here," basically.

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Some might say we're
archaeologists of sorts.

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A lot of these chips are being
sold on eBay, for example,

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as scrap for gold recovery.

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And so, there's always that
worry in the back of my mind

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that some chips have already
been lost

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and we'll never be able
to see those again.

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But it is part of our history
as a species, all these chips,

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all these different designs.

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We are in the technological age,
and so, at least for me,

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I think it's important
to document these.