system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5 How do chip manufacturers keep their IP from being reversed engineered.

How do chip manufacturers keep their IP from being reversed engineered?
Is it too difficult for other companies to understand how the chips and boards were made and try to come up with how to make it themselves?
gpt
Chip manufacturing is (largely) more a question of manufacturing than of design. It's pretty common knowledge what a chip should look like, but less common how to make that en mass. Some details of the process can be reverse engineered, but others are not so possible. For example, some steps of the process involve applying a protective coating and then washing it away, leaving no evidence of what material was used, how it was applied or how it was washed away. 

For some details that could be reverse engineered, most companies would patent those, so anyone else hoping to use them would have to pay a large fee to do so.