Powers of ten, for a computer

From electron to pixel

Eight zoom levels of one event: a program printing Hello, world. Start inside the silicon and zoom out until the letter H lights up on a screen.

Field of view 5 nmTimescale 0.1 ps

    Simplified for clarity: modern transistors are 3D (FinFET or gate-all-around) rather than the flat cross-section shown, and real CPU cores are deeper, out-of-order and superscalar. The dashed copper box in each scene marks where the previous level lives. Arrow keys also move between levels.