---
title: Chips
type: Chip
description: This is the description
images:
  - src: ./assets/components/chip.JPG
    alt: 'A chip sooooo small the picture has to be blurry'
usage: Being a black boxed monolith
whereToFind: Everywhere!
alsoKnownAs: "chip, IC, Intergrated Circuit"
---

Typically, when checking out a PCB, I will immediately check all IC, or "Intergrated Circuits", by putting the part number in an online search engine. There are a few I'm always looking for as they are commonly used in the building of simple synthesizers, and these are **Op-Amps** and **CMOS logic chips**. Additionally, you could be lucky and discover a microcontroller, allowing you to flash your own program. To my surprise I found a microcontroller in a LED lamp, but I haven't managed to figure it out yet.

## The difficulty of prototyping with IC's
Not only are loads of schematics published online based around (oddly specific) IC's, they tend to break very fast. I cannot count the number of time the number of times I've accidently put a chip in upside down, causing the + and - to be flipped, and burning out the chip within seconds. In a world of plenty you'd just replace the chip with a new one, but in the reality of working with salvaged hardware, this is not that easy.

<ins>Discuss materiality of chips, remainders of IC development</ins>
<ins>History of IC's in Digital Rubbish</ins>