YOU COULD HAVE the world’s smallest artwork tucked in your pocket right now. Smaller than we can see, tiny designs, in-jokes, and messages are embedded in our electronics. And people are hunting them too, like children meticulously scanning a Spring hedgerow for a glimmer of silver foil, the telltale wrapper of a hidden Easter egg. This is the world of chip art, hiding in plain sight.

Silicon doodles are very tiny images etched into silicon chips, sometimes hidden beneath layers of electronics. They were once added as a kind of copyright mark, because if a competitor decided to rip off the chip design, it would probably include the original doodle. They usually require a microscope, and you’re likely to void warranties by accessing them. But this hasn’t stopped easter egg hunters from finding them and sharing them in communities and on message boards.

Putting artistic images on PCBs is not just a matter of aesthetics. PCB designer Nico Tzovanis in Argentina uses images to test the quality of manufacturers. “Manufacturing processes have improved,” he says, “but it’s a good idea to work out if a manufacturer can manage your practical PCB designs. I have used fractals as pictures because they have many weird angles, and you can see if a manufacturer can produce super sharp corners or close traces accurately. If they are unable to print the artwork on a board accurately, and you are hoping to use similar angles, your PCB design might not work. In the past, you had to place an order for thousands of boards, but now you can order a few units online and have them delivered to your door at low costs. It’s a lot more accessible to everyone.”

One such explorer is known by his handle CPU Duke. Based in Germany, he has uncovered around 100 examples of chip art himself, and keeps track of what is now around 500 known doodles, discovered by the easter egg-hunting community over the years. Talking to him, it’s clear that he has a passion for electronics. He even has an AppleMac Plus in view, the early computer known for having the design team’s signatures cast into its plastic case. The world of hidden markings runs deep in electronics.

“The integrated circuit is a miracle,” he says. “If you have an old phone in your hand, it will have thousands of transistors inside of it. When you look back at the rate of development, it was so steep, and we now all take this for granted. In this microscopic world, you get an understanding of the humans behind the design and the traces they leave.”

Don Straney, an electrical engineer in Montreal, Canada, has also found illustrations in silicon chips. Still, he says there is beauty in the way that PCBs are designed in terms of their functionality. “It’s interesting to me to see how things are built, what design choices people make, how something works,” he says. “I like that there’s an accidental abstract art side to it. You find lots of things that are interesting technically but also look nice.”

In the U.S., Kenton Smith, also known as EvilMonkeyzDesignz, has been growing an online community across Instagram, YouTube and on a Discord server called ChipChat. In these spaces, a thriving community shares discoveries and lists of items that need a little more detective work. “Sometimes it feels like you have seen them all,” he says. “But then you find something new. There’s a great resource called Silicon Zoo, which was started by Michael Davidson in the 90s. But there are some photos online that show that a doodle exists but not where it came from, it’s exciting to hunt for those images and share their location.” 

While the discoveries are a delight, there could be more that will never be seen. “There are so many chips that haven’t been opened up yet,” says Smith. “It’s concerning that some unique chip designs will be lost forever because they were sold for gold scrap and never properly documented.” Within the community, there’s excitement with each new shared image and even better, the will to encourage each other and wish for good hunting.

CPU Duke often releases his finds in connection with particular days of the year. He released a heart for Valentine’s Day and marked St Andrew’s Day with a tiny map of Scotland. This year, he also has something special set for the Lunar New Year to share online.

As well as sharing with an international digital audience, CPU Duke makes beautiful photographic prints of circuit boards. He’s hoping to display his work in art galleries, bringing the secret world to a much wider audience. By enlarging these tiny worlds, he can throw light on the delicate design work that has emerged from human creativity. As PCB and chip design can now be handled using AI-assisted design tools, having these larger-scale visual artworks on show in galleries and museums will be a testament to the ingenuity of the engineers.