Reverse engineering the ARM1, ancestor of the iPhone's processor

Almost every smartphone uses a processor based on the ARM1 chip created in 1985. The Visual ARM1 simulator shows what happens inside the ARM1 chip as it runs; the result (below) is fascinating but mysterious.[1] In this article, I reverse engineer key parts of the chip and explain how they work, bridging the gap between the puzzling flashing lines in the simulator and what the chip is actually doing. I describe the overall structure of the chip and then descend to the individual transistors, showing how they are built out of silicon and work together to store and process data. After reading this article, you can look at the chip's circuits and understand the data they store.

Simulation of the ARM1 processor chip.

Screenshot of the Visual ARM1 simulator, showing the activity inside the ARM1 chip as it executes a program.

Overview of the ARM1 chip

The ARM1 chip is built from functional blocks, each with a different purpose. Registers store data, the ALU (arithmetic-logic unit) performs simple arithmetic, instruction decoders determine how to handle each instruction, and so forth. Compared to most processors, the layout of the chip is simple, with each functional block clearly visible. (In comparison, the layout of chips such as the 6502 or Z-80 is highly hand-optimized to avoid any wasted space. In these chips, the functional blocks are squished together, making it harder to pick out the pieces.)

The diagram below shows the most important functional blocks of the ARM chip.[2] The actual processing happens in the bottom half of the chip, which implements the data path. The chip operates on 32 bits at a time so it is structured as 32 horizontal layers: bit 31 at the top, down to bit 0 at the bottom. Several data buses run horizontally to connect different sections of the chip. The large register file, with 25 registers, stands out in the image. The Program Counter (register 15) is on the left of the register file and register 0 is on the right.[3]

The main components of the ARM1 chip. Most of the pins are used for address and data lines; unlabeled pins are various control signals.

The main components of the ARM1 chip. Most of the pins are used for address and data lines; unlabeled pins are various control signals.

Computation takes place in the ALU (arithmetic-logic unit), which is to the right of the registers. The ALU performs 16 different operations (add, add with carry, subtract, logical AND, logical OR, etc.) It takes two 32-bit inputs and produces a 32-bit output. The ALU is described in detail here.[4] To the right of the ALU is the 32-bit barrel shifter. This large component performs a binary shift or rotate operation on its input, and is described in more detail below. At the left is the address circuitry which provides an address to memory through the address pins. At the right data circuitry reads and writes data values to memory.

Above the datapath circuitry is the control circuitry. The control lines run vertically from the control section to the data path circuits below. These signals select registers, tell the ALU what operation to perform, and so forth. The instruction decode circuitry processes each instruction and generates the necessary control signals. The register decode block processes the register select bits in an instruction and generates the control signals to select the desired registers.[5]

The pins

The squares around the outside of the image above are the pads that connect the processor to the outside world. The photo below shows the 84-pin package for the ARM1 processor chip. The gold-plated pins are wired to the pads on the silicon chip inside the package.

The ARM1 processor chip installed in the Acorn ARM Evaluation System. Original photo by Flibble, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Acorn-ARM-Evaluation-System.jpg, CC BY-SA 3.0.

The ARM1 processor chip installed in the Acorn ARM Evaluation System. Full photo by Flibble, CC BY-SA 3.0.

Most of the pads are used for the address and data lines to memory. The chip has 26 address lines, allowing it to access 64MB of memory, and has 32 data lines, allowing it to read or write 32 bits at a time. The address lines are in the lower left and the data lines are in the lower right. As the simulator runs, you can see the address pins step through memory and the data pins read data from memory. The right hand side of the simulator shows the address and data values in hex, e.g. "A:00000020 D:e1a00271". If you know hex, you can easily match these values to the pin states.

Each corner of the chip has a power pin (+) and a ground pin (-), providing 5 volts to run the chip. Various control signals are at the top of the chip. In the simulator, it is easy to spot the the two clock signals that step the chip through its operations (below). The phase 1 and phase 2 clocks alternate, providing a tick-tock rhythm to the chip. In the simulator, the clock runs at a couple cycles per second, while the real chip has a 8MHz clock, more than a million times faster. Finally, note below the manufacturer's name "ACORN" on the chip in place of pin 82.

The two clock signals for the ARM1 processor chip.

History of the ARM chip

The ARM1 was designed in 1985 by engineers Sophie Wilson (formerly Roger Wilson) and Steve Furber of Acorn Computers. The chip was originally named the Acorn RISC Machine and intended as a coprocessor for the BBC Micro home/educational computer to improve its performance. Only a few hundred ARM1 processors were fabricated, so you might expect ARM to be a forgotten microprocessor, a historical footnote of the 1980s. However, the original ARM1 chip led to the amazingly successful ARM architecture with more than 50 billion ARM chips produced. What happened?

In the early 1980s, academic research suggested that instead of making processor instruction sets more complex, designers would get better performance from a processor that was simple but fast: the Reduced Instruction Set Computer or RISC.[6] The Berkeley and Stanford research papers on RISC inspired the ARM designers to choose a RISC design. In addition, given the small size of the design team at Acorn, a simple RISC chip was a practical choice.[7]

The simplicity of a RISC design is clear when comparing the ARM1 and Intel's 80386, which came out the same year: the ARM1 had about 25,000 transistors versus 275,000 in the 386.[8] The photos below show the two chips at the same scale; the ARM1 is 50mm2 compared to 104mm2 for the 386. (Twenty years later, an ARM7TDMI core was 0.1mm2; magnified at the same scale it would be the size of this square vividly illustrating Moore's law.)

Die photo of the ARM1 processor chip. Courtesy of Computer History Museum. Intel 386 CPU die photo (A80386DX-20). By Pdesousa359, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Intel_A80386DX-20_CPU_Die_Image.jpg (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Die photos of the ARM1 processor and the Intel 386 processor to the same scale. The ARM1 is much smaller and contained 25,000 transistors compared to 275,000 in the 386. The 386 was higher density, with a 1.5 micron process compared to 3 micron for the ARM1. ARM1 photo courtesy of Computer History Museum. Intel A80386DX-20 by Pdesousa359, CC BY-SA 3.0.

Because of the ARM1's small transistor count, the chip used very little power: about 1/10 Watt, compared to nearly 2 Watts for the 386. The combination of high performance and low power consumption made later versions of ARM chip very popular for embedded systems. Apple chose the ARM processor for its ill-fated Newton handheld system and in 1990, Acorn Computers, Apple, and chip manufacturer VLSI Technology formed the company Advanced RISC Machines to continue ARM development.[9]

In the years since then, ARM has become the world's most-used instruction set with more than 50 billion ARM processors manufactured. The majority of mobile devices use an ARM processor; for instance, the Apple A8 processor inside iPhone 6 uses the 64-bit ARMv8-A. Despite its humble beginnings, the ARM1 made IEEE Spectrum's list of 25 microchips that shook the world and PC World's 11 most influential microprocessors of all time.

Looking at the low-level construction of the ARM1 chip

Getting back to the chip itself, the ARM1 chip is constructed from five layers. If you zoom in on the chip in the simulator, you can see the components of the chip, built from these layers. As seen below, the simulator uses a different color for each layer, and highlights circuits that are turned on. The bottom layer is the silicon that makes up the transistors of the chip. During manufacturing, regions of the silicon are modified (doped) by applying different impurities. Silicon can be doped positive to form a PMOS transistor (blue) or doped negative for an NMOS transistor (red). Undoped silicon is basically an insulator (black).

The ARM1 simulator uses different colors to represent the different layers of the chip.

The ARM1 simulator uses different colors to represent the different layers of the chip.

Polysilicon wires (green) are deposited on top of the silicon. When polysilicon crosses doped silicon, it forms the gate of a transistor (yellow). Finally, two layers of metal (gray) are on top of the polysilicon and provide wiring.[10] Black squares are contacts that form connections between the different layers.

For our purposes, a MOS transistor can be thought of as a switch, controlled by the gate. When it is on (closed), the source and drain silicon regions are connected. When it is off (open), the source and drain are disconnected. The diagram below shows the three-dimensional structure of a MOS transistor.

Structure of a MOS transistor.

Structure of a MOS transistor.

Like most modern processors, the ARM1 was built using CMOS technology, which uses two types of transistors: NMOS and PMOS. NMOS transistors turn on when the gate is high, and pull their output towards ground. PMOS transistors turn on when the gate is low, and pull their output towards +5 volts.

Understanding the register file

The register file is a key component of the ARM1, storing information inside the chip. (As a RISC chip, the ARM1 makes heavy use of its registers.) The register file consists of 25 registers, each holding 32 bits. This section describes step-by-step how the register file is built out of individual transistors.

The diagram below shows two transistors forming an inverter. If the input is high (as below), the NMOS transistor (red) turns on, connecting ground to the output so the output is low. If the input is low, the PMOS transistor (blue) turns on, connecting power to the output so the output is high. Thus, the output is the opposite of the input, making an inverter.

An inverter in the ARM1 chip, as displayed by the simulator.

An inverter in the ARM1 chip, as displayed by the simulator.

Combining two inverters into a loop forms a simple storage circuit. If the first inverter outputs 1, the second inverter outputs 0, causing the first inverter to output 1, and the circuit is stable. Likewise, if the first inverter outputs 0, the second outputs 1, and the circuit is again stable. Thus, the circuit will remain in either state indefinitely, "remembering" one bit until forced into a different state.

Two inverters in the ARM1 chip form one bit of register storage.

Two inverters in the ARM1 chip form one bit of register storage.

To make this circuit into a useful register cell, read and write bus lines are added, along with select lines to connect the cell to the bus lines. When the write select line is activated, the pass connector connects the write bus to the inverter, allowing a new value to be overwrite the current bit. Likewise, pass transistors connect the bit to a read bus when activated by the corresponding select line, allowing the stored value to be read out.

Schematic of one bit in the ARM1 processor's register file.

Schematic of one bit in the ARM1 processor's register file.

To create the register file, the register cell above is repeated 32 times vertically for each bit, and 25 times horizontally to form each register. Each bit has three horizontal bus lines — the write bus and the two read buses — so there are 32 triples of bus lines. Each register has three vertical control lines — the write select line and two read select lines — so there are 25 triples of control lines. By activating the desired control lines, two registers can be read and one register can be written at a time.[11] When the simulator is running, you can see the vertical control lines activated to select registers, and you can see the data bits flowing on the horizontal bus lines.

By looking at a memory cell in the simulator, you can see which inverter is on and determine if the bit is a 0 or a 1. The diagram below shows a few register bits. If the upper inverter input is active, the bit is 0; if the lower inverter input is active, the bit is 1. (Look at the green lines above or below the bit values.) Thus, you can read register values right out of the simulator if you look closely.

By looking at the ARM1 register file, you can determine the value of each bit. For a 0 bit, the input to the top inverter is active (green/yellow); for a 1 bit, the input to the bottom inverter is active.

By looking at the ARM1 register file, you can determine the value of each bit. For a 0 bit, the input to the top inverter is active (green/yellow); for a 1 bit, the input to the bottom inverter is active.

The barrel shifter

The barrel shifter, which performs binary shifts, is another interesting component of the ARM1. Most instructions use the barrel shifter, allowing a binary argument to be shifted left, shifted right, or rotated by any amount (0 to 31 bits). While running the simulator, you can see diagonal lines jumping back and forth in the barrel shifter.

The diagram below shows the structure of the barrel shifter. Bits flows into the shifter vertically with bit 0 on the left and bit 31 on the right. Output bits leave the shifter horizontally with bit 0 on the bottom and bit 31 on top. The diagonal lines visible in the barrel shifter show where the vertical lines are connected to the horizontal lines, generating a shifted output. Different positions of the diagonals result in different shifts. The upper diagonal line shifts bits to the left, and the lower diagonal line shifts bits to the right. For a rotation, both diagonals are active; it may not be immediately obvious but in a rotation part of the word is shifted left and part is shifted right.

Structure of the barrel shifter in the ARM1 chip.

Structure of the barrel shifter in the ARM1 chip.

Zooming in on the barrel shifter shows exactly how it works. It contains a 32 by 32 crossbar grid of transistors, each connecting one vertical line to one horizontal line. The transistor gates are connected by diagonal control lines; transistors along the active diagonal connect the appropriate vertical and horizontal lines. Thus, by activating the appropriate diagonals, the output lines are connected to the input lines, shifted by the desired amounts. Since the chip's input lines all run horizontally, there are 32 connections between input lines and the corresponding vertical bit lines.

Details of the barrel shifter in the ARM1 chip. Transistors along a specific diagonal are activated to connect the vertical bit lines and output lines. Each input line is connected to a vertical bit line through the indicated connections.

Details of the barrel shifter in the ARM1 chip. Transistors along a specific diagonal are activated to connect the vertical bit lines and output lines. Each input line is connected to a vertical bit line through the indicated connections.

The demonstration program

When you run the simulator, it executes a short hardcoded program that performs shifts of increasing amounts. You don't need to understand the code, but if you're curious it is:
0000  E1A0100F mov     r1, pc        @ Some setup
0004  E3A0200C mov     r2, #12
0008  E1B0F002 movs    pc, r2
000C  E1A00000 nop
0010  E1A00000 nop
0014  E3A02001 mov     r2, #1        @ Load register r2 with 1
0018  E3A0100F mov     r1, #15       @ Load r1 with value to shift
001C  E59F300C ldr     r3, pointer
    loop:
0020  E1A00271 ror     r0, r1, r2    @ Rotate r1 by r2 bits, store in r0
0024  E2822001 add     r2, r2, #1    @ Add 1 to r2
0028  E4830004 str     r0, [r3], #4  @ Write result to memory
002C  EAFFFFFB b       loop          @ Branch to loop
Inside the loop, register r1 (0x000f) is rotated to the right by r2 bit positions and the result is stored in register r0. Then r2 is incremented and the shift result written to memory. As the simulator runs, watch as r2 is incremented and as r0 goes through the various values of 4 bits rotated. The A and D values show the address and data pins as instructions are read from memory.

The changing shift values are clearly visible in the barrel shifter, as the diagonal line shifts position. If you zoom in on the register file, you can read out the values of the registers, as described earlier.

Conclusion

The ARM1 processor led to the amazingly successful ARM processor architecture that powers your smart phone. The simple RISC architecture of the ARM1 makes the circuitry of the processor easy to understand, at least compared to a chip such as the 386.[12] The ARM1 simulator provides a fascinating look at what happens inside a processor, and hopefully this article has helped explain what you see in the simulator.

P.S. If you want to read more about ARM1 internals, see Dave Mugridge's series of posts:
Inside the armv1 Register Bank
Inside the armv1 Register Bank - register selection
Inside the armv1 Read Bus
Inside the ALU of the armv1 - the first ARM microprocessor

Notes and references

[1] I should make it clear that I am not part of the Visual 6502 team that built the ARM1 simulator. More information on the simulator is in the Visual 6502 team's blog post The Visual ARM1.

[2] The block diagram below shows the components of the chip in more detail. See the ARM Evaluation System manual for an explanation of each part.

Floorplan of the ARM1 chip, from ARM Evaluation System manual. (Bus labels are corrected from original.)

Floorplan of the ARM1 chip, from ARM Evaluation System manual. (Bus labels are corrected from original.)

[3] You may have noticed that the ARM architecture describes 16 registers, but the chip has 25 physical registers. There are 9 "extra" registers because there are extra copies of some registers for use while handling interrupts.

Another interesting thing about the register file is the PC register is missing a few bits. Since the ARM1 uses 26-bit addresses, the top 6 bits are not used. Because all instructions are aligned on a 32-bit boundary, the bottom two address bits in the PC are always zero. These 8 bits are not only unused, they are omitted from the chip entirely.

[4] The ALU doesn't support multiplication (added in ARM 2) or division (added in ARMv7).

[5] A bit more detail on the decode circuitry. Instruction decoding is done through three separate PLAs. The ALU decode PLA generates control signals for the ALU based on the four operation bits in the instruction. The shift decode PLA generates control signals for the barrel shifter. The instruction decode PLA performs the overall decoding of the instruction. The register decode block consists of three layers. Each layer takes a 4-bit register id and activates the corresponding register. There are three layers because ARM operations use two registers for inputs and a third register for output.

[6] In a RISC computer, the instruction set is restricted to the most-used instructions, which are optimized for high performance and can typically execute in a single clock cycle. Instructions are a fixed size, simplifying the instruction decoding logic. A RISC processor requires much less circuitry for control and instruction decoding, leaving more space on the chip for registers. Most instructions operate on registers, and only load and store instructions access memory. For more information on RISC vs CISC, see RISC architecture.

[7] For details on the history of the ARM1, see Conversation with Steve Furber: The designer of the ARM chip shares lessons on energy-efficient computing.

[8] The 386 and the ARM1 instruction sets are different in many interesting ways. The 386 has instructions from 1 byte to 15 bytes, while all ARM1 instructions are 32-bits long. The 386 has 15 registers - all with special purposes, while the ARM1 has 25 registers, mostly general-purpose. 386 instructions can usually operate on memory, while ARM1 instructions operate on registers except for load and store. The 386 has about 140 different instructions, compared to a couple dozen in the ARM1 (depending how you count). Take a look at the 386 opcode map to see how complex decoding a 386 instruction is. ARM1 instructions fall into 5 categories and can be simply decoded. (I'm not criticizing the 386's architecture, just pointing out the major architectural differences.)

See the Intel 80386 Programmer's Reference Manual and 80386 Hardware Reference Manual for more details on the 386 architecture.

[9] Interestingly the ARM company doesn't manufacture chips. Instead, the ARM intellectual property is licensed to hundreds of different companies that build chips that use the ARM architecture. See The ARM Diaries: How ARM's business model works for information on how ARM makes money from licensing the chip to other companies.

[10] The first metal layer in the chip runs largely top-to-bottom, while the second metal layer runs predominantly horizontally. Having two layers of metal makes the layout much simpler than single-layer processors such as the 6502 or Z-80.

[11] In the register file, alternating bits are mirrored to simplify the layout. This allows neighboring bits to share power and ground lines. The ARM1's register file is triple-ported, so two register can be read and one register written at the same time. This is in contrast to chips such as the 6502 or Z-80, which can only access registers one at a time.

[12] For more information on the ARM1 internals, the book VLSI Risc Architecture and Organization by ARM chip designer Steven Furber has a hundred pages of information on the ARM chip internals. An interesting slide deck is A Brief History of ARM by Lee Smith, ARM Fellow.

Creating high resolution integrated circuit die photos with Hugin or ICE

Have you ever wanted to take a bunch of photos of an integrated circuit die and combine them into a high-res image? The stitching software can be difficult, so I've written a guide to the process I use. These tips may also be useful for other Hugin panoramas.

The first step is to take a bunch of photos of the die with a microscope. I used an old Motorola 6820 PIA (Peripheral Interface Adapter) chip. This chip had a metal cap over the die that popped off easily with a chisel, exposing the die. The 6820 is notable as the keyboard interface chip in the Apple I computer.

The MC6820 chip with the metal lid popped off to reveal the silicon die.

The MC6820 chip with the metal lid popped off to reveal the silicon die.

The next step is to take photos of the die through a microscope. I used an AmScope metallurgical microscope like the one below. A metallurgical microscope shines the light from above so you can view opaque objects such as chips. (The box on the right of the microscope is the light.) It's much easier if the microscope has an X-Y stage to precisely move the die for each picture.

The key to success is pictures with substantial overlap, so the software can figure out how to combine them. Use more overlap than you think necessary - at least 30% is good. Skimping on the overlap may result in hours of manual work later. The quality of the input photos is also important - make sure the die is level so you can get sharp focus across the whole image. Give the images structured names according to their grid position: 11.png, 12.png, 21.png, ... This will make it much easier to figure out which photos are overlapping neighbors when stitching them together.

For this article, I used the set of images below. Some of them overlap substantially, and some ... not so much. As a result, this article describes a fairly difficult stitch. In the process I learned the importance of overlap, and Hugin worked much better when I tried again with a denser set of images.

The set of images used to generate the die photo.

The set of images used to generate the die photo.

The easiest way to stitch together photos is with Microsoft's Image Composite Editor (ICE). You simply import the photos, click Stitch, and save the result. If ICE works, it's super-easy, but it doesn't have any flexibility if you run into problems (as I did). ICE can be downloaded from Microsoft.

If ICE doesn't work for you, the open-source Hugin panorama photo stitcher is much more flexible and provides many more options. While Hugin is easy to use for simple panoramas, it's pretty confusing for more complex projects, which is why I've written this. The software can be downloaded from the Hugin website. To start a stitch with Hugin, load the images by dragging-and-dropping them into the Photos window. Enter "Normal (rectilinear)" for the lens type and 1 for HFOV in the dialog.

The next step is to generate the control points, which indicate features that match between pairs of images. The control points are what tie the images together, so high quality control points are critical. To generate control points, under "Feature Matching" select "Hugin's CPFind" and click "Create control points". (See the screenshot below.) It will take several minutes to generate control points. You can install other control point finders if you want. Autopano-SIFT-C is said to be good, but I didn't get good results at all with it; it is in a zip file here.

Main screen of the Hugin panorama program

Main screen of the Hugin panorama program

Next, optimize the control points to fit the images together. Select Custom Parameters under Optimize, which will add the Optimizer tab. Go to the Optimize tab, and disable rotation and lens parameter optimization, so only Pitch and Yaw are optimized: Right click on Roll, and select "Unselect all", so the roll entries are not underlined. Do the same for lens parameters. Back at the Photos tab, select "Positions (incremental, starting from anchor)" under Optimize and click "Calculate". Hugin will try to find the best positions for the images. You want a maximum distance of a few pixels, but if you're unlucky the distance may be in the hundreds. Click Yes to apply the optimization.

The Panorama Preview icon will generate a panorama based on the control points. To get the image to the center, click Center and then click the center of the images. Click Fit and it may fit the panorama into the window, or you may need to move the sliders (very slowly). Above the panorama, you can select which images you wish to display. Important: only the selected images will be optimized. If you don't have enough images selected, you'll get the mysterious error "No Feature Points". As you can see below, my first attempt was a mess with all the images in one badly-aligned horizontal strip.

An unsuccessful attempt to generate a composite photo of an IC die with Hugin.

An unsuccessful attempt to generate a composite photo of an IC die with Hugin.

The next step is to fix the control points. Because Hugin optimizes globally, even a few bad control points can mess up the entire image. The main way to fix control points is the Control Points screen, shown below. Select an image on the left and an image on the right. The image selection dialog shows how many control points match between the images. The squares on the images indicate matching control points, which are also listed. If images overlap but don't have any control points, add control points by clicking matching spots in the left and right images. The images will then zoom so you can fine-tune the positions. Finally, click Add.

The control point editing screen in Hugin.

The control point editing screen in Hugin.

A quick way to create control points between two images that overlap is to re-run Hugin's feature mapper on the pair of images. Go to the Photos tab, control-click two images, and then click Create Control Points. If the images overlap sufficiently, Hugin should find control points. If this doesn't work, you're stuck with manually adding points as described above.

If two images shouldn't share control points, go to the Control Points tab, select the two images and delete their control points. This is where organized naming of the images helps - if you see control points between img00 and img35, there's probably something wrong.

You can also clean up bad control points with the control points list. Click the Show Control Points icon at the top and click Distance to sort. You should see a lot of small distances (good) and some very large distances (bad) at the bottom. Click a large distance, and it will bring up the Control Points page. Delete the bad control points. You can also do a bulk delete from the Show Control Points dialog. Click Select by Distance, enter 50 (for example), and then click delete. (But be warned this could delete some good control points too, so you might want to check them first.)

Once the control points are reasonably sensible, go back to the Photos tab and re-optimize. If you're lucky, the images will now be aligned. Unfortunately, I ended up with a cubist mess. I'll explain how to still get a panorama even if you run into problems like this.

Another unsuccessful attempt to make a composite die photo with Hugin.

Another unsuccessful attempt to make a composite die photo with Hugin.

If the parameters get too messed up, select Custom Parameters under Optimize, which will add the Optimizer tab. Under that tab you can reset all the parameters, or parameters for individual images. This is helpful if images start showing up rotated, for instance.

To debug your panorama, you can add images to the panorama one at a time to see which image is causing the problems. Use the Panorama Preview to select the images you want to process. After adding each new image, use the Optimizer tab to optimize the selected images: check "Only use control points between image selected in preview window" and click "Optimize now". If the image shows up in the right spot, all is well. Otherwise, there's something wrong with the last image's control points. Examine its control points under the Control Points tab, and delete any bad matches. (Since integrated circuits often have repeated blocks, it's easy for the matcher to generate convincing but entirely wrong control points.) If the newly-added image doesn't show up at all, it probably lacks any control points linking it with the rest of the images, and got placed at the origin. If the image shows up at an angle, it may have just one control point linking it to another image, letting it swivel around, so add more matching control points. After fixing the image's control points, re-optimize and hopefully it will now be placed correctly. You should be able to correct all the problems by proceeding image by image.

The Panorama Preview window in Hugin. By selecting a subset of the images to tile, control point errors can be corrected one image at a time.

The Panorama Preview window in Hugin. By selecting a subset of the images to tile, control point errors can be corrected one image at a time.

Once you have a good preview, you can generate the final image. Go to the Stitcher tab. Select Equirectangular project. Click Calculate field of view. I recommend starting with a small canvas; it's annoying to wait for a 100 megapixel image and then discover it's a mess. I suggest avoiding cropping; Hugin tends to crop too much, and it's easy to crop later with a tool such as Gimp. Finally, click Stitch, save the project, and wait while the image is generated.

If the result looks good, increase the resolution and generate a high-res version. The photo below shows my final stitched image of the Motorola 6820 die. Click for the full-size image. I've left the image uncropped to make the tiling more visible. I've since made a better composite, starting with source images that overlapped more, and the process was much easier.

Die photo of the Motorola 6820 Peripheral Interface Adapter chip, composited with Hugin.

Die photo of the Motorola 6820 Peripheral Interface Adapter chip, composited with Hugin.

One advanced Hugin feature that may be useful is defining horizontal and vertical lines, so your image comes out straight (wiki). To do this, add control points on a horizontal line between two images, e.g. the upper edge at the left and the upper edge at the right. Note that unlike regular control points, you are not matching the same point in both images, just points on the same horizontal line. After clicking Add, change the mode to Horizontal Line using the dropdown. Put another horizontal edge on the bottom of the die. Vertical lines are similar.

To conclude, making a high-res die photo is an interesting project if you have the right kind of microscope. The Hugin compositing software has a steep learning curve, but hopefully this article will help. Starting with images that overlap significantly will make the process much easier. I should mention that I'm not at all an expert at Hugin or die photos - please leave a comment if you have suggestions.

Acknowledgements: Mikhail at zeptobars gave me helpful advice about Hugin. Other good sites with die photos are Visual 6502 and Silicon Pr0n.

Update: some more advanced information from Mikhail:

Regarding optimizing lens parameters – one of the optimal ways is to make a test panorama, some 10-20 shots with ~50-70% shots overlap. Then you align this (position only, no rotation), and at the end – add lens parameters (first optimize on a,b,c, then d,e then a,b,c,d,e). After that you can export lens distortion calibration data to a file and preload it for a large optimization job, so that you won’t need to optimize it. This works for the same lens and same microscope alignment. Good microscope lenses might be okay without lens correction though.

Another large topic is chromatic aberration correction on individual photos before stitching, which also could be done by Hugin tools.

"c:\Program Files\Hugin\bin\tca_correct.exe" -o cv -n 1000 -t 10 -m 1 5xsample.tif

This will try to detect optimal chromatic aberration correction for a single photo. It will give you coefficients, which could be tested by:

"c:\Program Files\Hugin\bin\fulla.exe" -r 0.0000094:0.0000000:0.0000097:0.9853381 -b -0.0000853:0.0000000:-0.0004039:1.0021658 -s -t 4 -o corrected.tif 5xsample.tif

If corrected looks better than original – you can do that for all photos in a batch before stitching. Each lens needs its own correction batch. So for example I have separate batches for 10x and 20x lenses. 5x lenses is quite good without chroma correction.

set path=%path%;"c:\Program Files\ImageMagick-6.8.7-Q16";"c:\Program Files\Hugin\bin\";
cd image
rem mogrify -shave 3
FOR %%I IN (*.tif) DO "fulla.exe" -r 0.0000000:0.0000000:-0.0003093:0.9990635 -b 0.0000000:0.0000000:0.0016437:1.0004672 -s -t 4 %%I -o %%I
mogrify -crop 4084x3276+6+5 *.tif
rem Original size: 4096x3286
ImageMagick crop is used at the end to cut any warped edges of the frame. Also some Chinese cameras have 1px artifacts on the very edges of the frame that should be cropped.