[Stamp01]

How do people learn how to reverse engineer ICs from pictures like this? I can make out the connections for the most part, but I wouldn't know where to begin to glean anything else.

[fuckstick]

A bachelor level EE curriculum is a good start. There must be open courses for most of this these days (perhaps MIT 6.374). Once you understand some basics of semiconductor physics and integrated circuit design all of this becomes much easier to contextualize.

[djmips]

Check out righto.com - you can start small and work your way up. You can learn to understand transistors from their shapes. There are also automated tools like what was used for Visual6502.org

[aappleby]

Pattern matching and comparing to a reference implementation. Think of it like a giant Sudoku crossed with a maze.