The time circuit control microchip was a device essential to the working order of the DeLorean time machine, and was manufactured in Japan. After the DeLorean was struck by lightning during the Hill Valley Thunderstorm in 1955, sending Emmett Brown back to 1885, it shorted out, burning to a charred color. The lightning also destroyed the flying circuits fitted during the DeLorean's hover conversion in 2015 — meaning the car would never fly again.