Intel 1103 DRAM

About this Artwork: This artwork is of an early memory chip that stored 1,024 bits of information, 1K. Memory circuits are very repetitious since the circuit patterns for the individual memory bits are repeated over and over. When you look at the picture of the chip, you will notice the chip is broken up into four rectangular areas. Each of these is a memory array of 256 bits. The arrays are further broken down into 16 rows and 16 columns of bits. The image to right is a closeup of some of the bits. You can see the layers of the chip.  This chip is an Intel 1103 Dynamic Random Access Memory chip. The actual chip is a the center of the artwork. Released in 1970, the 1103 was the first DRAM. Most computer memory prior to the 1103 was implemented as magnetic cores which where arrays of tiny donuts of iron that were magnetized, or not, to represent ones and zeros. The DRAM used a totally different approach to storing bits. The 1103 DRAM used silicon transistors and capacitors to hold bits