The fragile silicon surface is covered with a protective layer and wiring is added so it can be attached to a circuit board. This fingernail-sized marvel is finally more or less finished, ready to become part of a smartphone. From Malaysia it is then shipped to the assembly plant in China. In these enormous, town-sized factories, most of them run by a company called Hon Hai Technology Group, better known as Foxconn, they are attached to logic boards alongside a dozen or more other chips from companies like Qualcomm and Texas Instruments.
