This single 8 inch-diameter sheet of silicon is etched with 35 replicas of five different chips, each one destined to be sent into space.
Those brave hands in the picture are holding around 1.75 billion transistors in total, with each of the circuits being made up of around 10 million transistors or basic circuit switches. This was one of 25 identical sheets, produced at a cost of at least $3 million. The chips themselves will be used to perform specialized tasks, including data handling, communications processing and attitude control. [ESA]
