| Chip art refers to microscopic artwork built into integrated circuits, also called chips or ICs. Since ICs are printed by photolithography, not constructed a component at a time, there is no additional cost to include features in otherwise unused space on the chip. Designers have used this freedom to put all sorts of artwork on the chips themselves, from simple designer's initials to rather complex drawings. Given the small size of chips, these figures cannot be seen without a microscope.
Originally, these doddles also served a practical purpose. If a competitor produced a similar chip, and examination showed it contained the same doodles, then this was strong evidence that the design was copied (a copyright violation) and not independently derived. A revision of the copyright law made all chip masks automatically copyrighted. Therefore an exact copy is now automatically a copyright violation, and the doodles serve no useful purpose.
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