Sticking to the 'Topic' description... (people that know me know how important that is to me! hahaha
![Cool 8)](https://www.eevblog.com/forum/Smileys/default/cool.gif)
)...
As an 'old' bastard, (or old 'bastard'!) and into old valve/tube equipment, I've always loved certain old Russian equipment/components!!
Yes, they were often built cruder, but always (seemingly to me), more robust! Meaning that they lasted, especially with physical abuse.
In regard to todays modern electronic components, I've always wondered about the following...
Inside I.C's, (even to a point with SMDS), they make the ACTUAL chip say typically about 2mm square. Obviously, this has to be EXTENDED
internally to wire it to tiny little wires to the normal size (and solder-able/accessible) typical IC casing/pins. I understand that either today, or
in the future, there are/maybe numerous quantities of individual IC's all built into one, but why so small? Why would the cost of a silicon wafer
be so high with it's associated component design/integration, when in the end it needs to expand to physically usable dimensions?