Free course · 6 sections · 36 lessons

All 36 lessons

From what a chip is to daily work in a chip test lab. Each lesson is one idea, told with pictures, and takes a few minutes.

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Section 1 · 7 lessons

Chips from zero

What a chip is, what it is made of, and the main kinds of processors.

  1. Lesson 1: What is a chip?A chip is a tiny slice of silicon packed with billions of switches that work together to compute, store or move data.Up nextDone
  2. Lesson 2: What is a transistor?A transistor is a tiny switch that electricity can flip on or off. Billions of them make a chip think.Up nextDone
  3. Lesson 3: How are chips made?Chips are printed in layers onto a round silicon wafer, cut into dies, tested, and sealed into packages.Up nextDone
  4. Lesson 4: What is a CPU?A CPU is the part of a computer that follows a program's instructions, one tiny step at a time, billions of times every second.Up nextDone
  5. Lesson 5: How does a CPU work?A CPU repeats a simple loop: fetch an instruction, decode it, do it, save the result, billions of times each second.Up nextDone
  6. Lesson 6: What is a GPU?A GPU is a chip with thousands of small cores that do many simple math jobs at once, perfect for pictures and AI.Up nextDone
  7. Lesson 7: What are TPUs and NPUs?TPUs and NPUs are chips or chip parts built just for AI math, so they run AI faster and with less energy than a CPU.Up nextDone

Section 2 · 6 lessons

Inside a modern processor

The parts, signals and software that every power feature depends on.

  1. Lesson 8: What is a system on a chip?A system on a chip puts the CPU, graphics, AI engine, memory controller and more onto one chip, like a city in miniature.Up nextDone
  2. Lesson 9: What is a clock signal?A clock is the chip's drumbeat. Each tick tells the circuits to take one step; faster ticks mean faster work and more power.Up nextDone
  3. Lesson 10: What are voltage and power rails?Voltage is the push that moves electricity through the chip. More push lets it run faster but burns much more power.Up nextDone
  4. Lesson 11: What are BIOS, firmware and drivers?Firmware is software built into hardware. The BIOS starts the computer; drivers let the OS talk to each part.Up nextDone
  5. Lesson 12: What controls power inside a chip?A tiny computer inside the chip watches temperature, power and work, and keeps choosing the best speed and voltage.Up nextDone
  6. Lesson 13: Why is one chip sold as many models?Factories test every chip and sort it by speed and power, then sell each group as a different model. That is binning.Up nextDone

Section 3 · 6 lessons

How chips save power

The main tricks a chip uses to spend less energy without feeling slow.

  1. Lesson 14: Why do chips need power management?Power management makes a chip use only the energy it needs, so batteries last, fans stay quiet and the chip stays cool.Up nextDone
  2. Lesson 15: Where does a chip's power go?Chips burn power two ways: each time switches flip (dynamic power), and by leaking current even when idle (leakage).Up nextDone
  3. Lesson 16: What is DVFS?DVFS turns speed and voltage up when there is work and down when there is not, like a car changing gears.Up nextDone
  4. Lesson 17: What are P-states and boost?P-states are a CPU's speed settings. Boost lets it run above its normal speed for a while when there is power and heat to spare.Up nextDone
  5. Lesson 18: What are clock gating and power gating?Gating is turning things off: stop a part's clock to pause it, or cut its power to switch it fully off.Up nextDone
  6. Lesson 19: What are C-states?C-states are a CPU's naps. C0 is awake; deeper naps save more power but take longer to wake from.Up nextDone

Section 4 · 4 lessons

Sleep and safety limits

How a computer sleeps, and how limits keep a chip cool and safe.

  1. Lesson 20: How does a computer sleep?When you close a laptop, the chip enters sleep: most of it turns off, while just enough stays on to wake up quickly.Up nextDone
  2. Lesson 21: What are TDP and power limits?Power limits cap how much electricity a chip may use, so it doesn't overheat or overload the power supply or the battery.Up nextDone
  3. Lesson 22: What is thermal throttling?When a chip gets too hot, it slows itself down to cool off. That is thermal throttling, and it protects the chip.Up nextDone
  4. Lesson 23: Which limit wins when several apply?Many limits watch the chip at once: power, current, heat. The strictest one at that moment decides the speed.Up nextDone

Section 5 · 6 lessons

The test lab

The machines, settings and tools used to test a new chip.

  1. Lesson 24: What is chip validation?Validation proves a real chip does what its design promised, by testing it in real computers, with real software.Up nextDone
  2. Lesson 25: What does a chip test setup look like?A test setup is a computer with the new chip (the system under test) plus a helper computer that controls and watches it.Up nextDone
  3. Lesson 26: How do you install an operating system?Put an installer for Windows or Linux on a USB stick, start the computer from it, and follow the steps on screen.Up nextDone
  4. Lesson 27: How do you change BIOS settings?The BIOS setup menu has switches for chip features. Testers flip them to turn power features on or off and compare.Up nextDone
  5. Lesson 28: How do you measure what a chip is doing?Chips report their own speed, power, temperature and sleep time. Tools read these numbers while a workload keeps the chip busy.Up nextDone
  6. Lesson 29: How do engineers peek inside a running chip?JTAG is a special test port on chips. Engineers plug in a cable to pause the chip, look inside and find bugs.Up nextDone

Section 6 · 7 lessons

Working in chip validation

How a power-management validation team turns all of this into daily work.

  1. Lesson 30: How does a new chip get from lab to store?New chips come back from the factory as early samples, get debugged and tested in rounds, then finally ship in products.Up nextDone
  2. Lesson 31: What does it mean to enable a feature?A feature is enabled when hardware, firmware, BIOS and OS all switch it on and it actually works on a real system.Up nextDone
  3. Lesson 32: What is a test plan?A test plan lists what to test, how, on which systems and what result counts as a pass, so anyone can repeat it.Up nextDone
  4. Lesson 33: What is a feature quick check?A feature quick check is a short test of every main feature on each new release, to catch big breaks fast before deeper testing.Up nextDone
  5. Lesson 34: What is debugging?Debugging means finding why something went wrong: make it happen again, narrow down where, and find the root cause.Up nextDone
  6. Lesson 35: What is bug triage?Triage means sorting problems quickly: how bad is it, is it real, and which team should fix it.Up nextDone
  7. Lesson 36: What does a power-management team do?A power-management validation team proves new chips save power the right way: fast when busy, cool under limits, asleep when idle.Up nextDone