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A home-made lithographically-fabricated integrated circuit
- Confiks 8y agoHave a mini-course into maskless photolithography[1][2], and find out how an old DLP projector combined with some advanced optics can yield this: http://sam.zeloof.xyz/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/IMG_2917-e1522160324771.jpg http://sam.zeloof.xyz/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/IMG_2917-e1... Take a tour in a home fab: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrmqZ0hgAXk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrmqZ0hgAXk His website and Youtube channel are so richly filled with knowledge that so desperately needs to be in the public domain, instead of being locked in corporate structures. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVoldtNpIzI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVoldtNpIzI [2] http://sam.zeloof.xyz/maskless-photolithography/ http://sam.zeloof.xyz/maskless-photolithography/
- analognoise 8y ago"His website and Youtube channel are so richly filled with knowledge that so desperately needs to be in the public domain, instead of being locked in corporate structures." All of this information is public domain, what are you talking about? This is extremely well understood stuff.
- Confiks 8y agoYeah, I went a bit overboard in my amazement that this exploration into building integrated circuitry with affordable tools was so well documented. Such practical information and experience is hard to come by in world where the manufacturing of integrated circuits has been iterated on with very expensive machinery for at least 50 years.
- mozumder 8y agoOK now grow your own SI wafers using repeated Czochralski process based on silicon you made by melting sand.
- archgoon 8y agoThis seems to be a little silly. Sure, that'd be cool, but I mean, he didn't claim to have manufactured his own oscilloscopes here either.
- mozumder 8y agoJust putting out next step learning challenges. I'm loving what he's doing, it's a great project, I hope he continues it by exploring different aspects of it. Other challenges include smaller lithography and CMOS fabrication using a self-aligned gate process. But there are pitfalls ahead, including chemicals that can kill with in trace doses... I fabricated my own ICs as a teen in my freshman year of college as part of our program, but that obviously wasn't at home. It was still awesome, just going through the entire process.
- vertexFarm 8y agoYou just can't impress everyone.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- femto 8y agoIEEE has a background piece for those (like me) wondering "who is this guy?" https://spectrum.ieee.org/semiconductors/devices/the-high-school-student-whos-building-his-own-integrated-circuits https://spectrum.ieee.org/semiconductors/devices/the-high-sc... Impressive.
- thefourthchime 8y agoHis inspiration, Jeri Ellsworth is just (if not more) impressive. Check out her youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdcKwOo7dmM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdcKwOo7dmM
- ereyes01 8y agoHere she talks about her life/career story, quite amazing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLy0mVkoLio https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLy0mVkoLio
- restalis 8y ago[5:16] "...oh, I didn't die having go in there messing with the hydrofluoric acid. My bones do feel a little gelatinous though." I'm not sure if I should admire or condone this kind of attitude in a science related context.
- henriquemaia 8y ago> I'm not sure if I should admire or condone this kind of attitude in a science related context. It makes no difference whatsoever to the whole what you’ve pointed out here. Throughout the video, she states she’s responding to critics. Her whole attitude is of teasing those who accuse her of not knowing what she does (calling her chips fake, etc). When she says that, it’s perfectly clear that she’s being very (and I mean very) sarcastic. We can discuss if her use of sarcasm is useful or not, but then we will be discussing the specifics of her presentation, not her skills at doing the chemical process she just demonstrated. Since this is a video about “Making Microchips at Home”; since she’s responding to critics; I think we can allow her some room to throw some sarcasm to the mix, even if it does not work out completely as intended. On a side note: it would be nice if people on the internet would allow others some “humanity"; by that meaning giving them room to err, like saying silly things when they are annoyed — instead of nitpicking bits of unimportant information. The Internet is already too noiseful as it is.
- fizixer 8y agoI was looking for how he managed the clean room or did he not go too small. Found the answer in the IEEE article shared by another commenter (he didn't go below 10 micron tech node). But now I have a follow up question, if getting a clean room is obviously harder, isn't "clean box" more doable? E.g., if you line up a bunch of tables, and put a long box on top that acts like a poor man's assembly line. The insides of that box are only accessible through gloves that are attached to holes on the sides of the box, and plenty of glass windows to look inside (kinda like the box in movie 'Life'). How cost effective and feasible (i.e., gets the job done) would that be compared to a clean room? maybe you could go sub-micron with it if not sub-100nm.
- Gibbon1 8y agoWhat I understand is while semiconductor machines live in clean rooms, the wafers never leave the hyper clean environment inside the machines. And when wafers move from machine to machine it's via sealed enclosures. Using long plastic box with a 3 axis gantry inside might be doable.
- sanxiyn 8y ago"clean box" is already used. It's called FOUP: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FOUP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FOUP
- sonium 8y agoAlso if you don't really care about yield, many things are not that critical. I did a PhD in semi-conductor physics, and most processes for silicon are actually surprisingly robust (compared to processes of any other material). Also many things are just done the way because people know it worked before, which does not mean you can't use less fancy equipment and it would still work.
- innovator116 8y agoImpressive to replicate silicon semiconductor process. But wouldn't it be more feasible to develop as good enough process node, flexible, thin film semiconductor devices? Have been observing developments of plastic based transistors, inks, processes like nanoimprint lithography, Cleanroom in a STEM microscope and Chad Mirkin's Tera Print system. Can a small scale nanfab emerge using tech such as Nano-Ops http://nano-ops.net/nanoscale-printing/ http://nano-ops.net/nanoscale-printing/ ? I imagine flexible, thin film, large panel based semiconductor SoC. It will not be just a mere microcontroller or IoT node, but a full fleged computing form factor. Think your wall as big plastic computer.
- bb88 8y agoSo there is reel to reel OLED screen technology out there (basically a printing press for OLED screens). http://www.flexolighting.eu/ http://www.flexolighting.eu/ (These guys have some pictures of the process). It's probably also possible to print transistors directly. Here's a paper from 2017 that outlays that process. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-01391-2 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-01391-2
- Taniwha 8y agoI'd rather see that done with a 3d-printing process that way rather than making giant flat things you end up making far more compact bulk 3D things
- iancmceachern 8y agoThis has lots of advantages. It removes the need for smaller and smaller chips, it spreads the heat out (a major limitation in electronics packaging today), and it adds a lot of new possibilities. It's a giant pcb and ic combined, both custom to each other and the application.
- ISL 8y agoAwesome. For those considering exploring some of these steps in their own garage -- the chemistry is dangerous, perhaps HF in particular, as it doesn't hurt, it just kills you a few hours later. Can you do this in a garage? Absolutely, but learn everything you need to know from an ensemble of safety-minded mentors before you strike out on your own. It's not just about safety for you, proper disposal of these chemicals is essential for the many generations to come. Sometimes it is inexpensive, sometimes it is costly. You need to know how before you start, or it costs a lot more. (Also, you can get someone else to pay for the hardware, the infrastructure, the material, the resists, the reagents, the safety training, and the waste disposal if you work/volunteer at a university's photolithography facility. They'll probably pay you, too.)
- 88e282102ae2e5b 8y agoI understand why it's necessary, but I was shocked that he uses piranha in his home garage. I cannot echo the above sentiment enough.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- Itsdijital 8y agoGood 'ole HF http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2004/03/03/things_i_wont_touch_1 http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2004/03/03/thi...
- donpdonp 8y agoTL;DR "hydrofluoric acid is a water solution of hydrogen fluoride, HF. That’s a gas, and it’s a lot worse. ... As soon as it hits anything moist – like your lungs – it dissolves in the water and turns into hydrofluoric acid again."
- lifeisstillgood 8y agoor "The straight liquid must really be a treat, but I’ve never seen it in that form, and would only wish to through binoculars."
- olskool 8y agoIf he could get feature size down to 10 microns someone might have a shot at making a microprocessor.
- AstralStorm 8y agoAt that scale his hacked together (amazingly cheap) optical lithography equipment will not serve. (See how well it did with 1um lines. That is the main problem.) Nor especially the photoresist process. Perhaps it can do 5um with a different resist.
- agumonkey 8y agoI'd gladly reproduce some vintage style computer with a large number of his ICs. Just for fun :) a B5000 maybe
- dschuetz 8y agoThat's great! Are we anywhere near to making homebrew ICs on silicon at home? Yes, apparently we are! But it seems we are still far away from DIY kits, or even complete prototyping devices (like 3D printers).
- terminado 8y agoGeeze, I though you needed a clean room to do this kind of work. I guess, being a hobby, with less concern for effort, loss of product, or cost versus profit, one might summon the will to try, try again, when confronted with botched fabrication runs. Even with millimeter-scale components, I'd still think dust and debris could be a real problem. Is it just that 12 hour runs are short enough to just accept an imperfect production output, since it's a personal project, or is dust not as big a deal at this scale as I'd imagine?
- AstralStorm 8y agoYou do not need a cleanroom, just some laminar airflow to prevent dust contamination. That is easy to achieve with a bunch of fans and lab clothing. Static electricity damage is prevented by grounding everything. (Important during lithography.) The hard part is getting a reliable plasma oven and the requisite chemicals plus running the process to reliability.
- anfilt 8y agoThe smaller you go the more worried you should be about dust, and particles. Also the more layers to your process. Also no mention of yield.
- Taniwha 8y agoBravo!
- vaxin 8y agoUoou... now this is really cool, this guy is incredible :)
- sjclemmy 8y agoWhen I read things like this I start to think about the following question: Given no technology at all (i.e. after an apocalypse!), how would one go about creating a computer (as we know them). What sort of knowledge would you need? The science of these things is basically multi decades of trial and error in various disciplines. Imagine a manual that explained how to create everything from scratch!
- speedplane 8y agoMost electrical and computer engineering undergrad degrees (not CS) do give you this information. You first learn how to create a transistor, then basic AND/OR logic gates with individual transistors, then adders and subtractors, and then eventually a pipelined processor with look ahead execution.
- fyi1183 8y agoThe fundamentals of a transistor, sure, but where does computer engineering include the chemistry of the actual lithography processes?
- jakeogh 8y agoI suspect knowing the fundamentals gets you pretty far, just knowing that UV and masks are a way to do it is enough for people to re-create the tech given the resources. Maybe e-beam would be a easier start? IDK. Not related but fun given the q: https://news.stanford.edu/news/2015/june/computer-water-drops-060815.html https://news.stanford.edu/news/2015/june/computer-water-drop...
- InitialLastName 8y agoIt's all well and good to know the fundamentals of photolithography, but in a societal boot-strapping scenario it's not enough to get you out of the technological subbasement. For example, I don't know where or how to derive the necessary chemistry. Or how to construct a building and fans to achieve a clean enough room to do this in. Nor do I know how to build a UV lamp. Hell, I don't know enough about metalworking to reliably manufacture enough wire to build a basic generator to power all this.
- orbital-decay 8y agoCan the process be streamlined into a single amateur-friendly device/lab? Yes, I mean a chip printer, as a commercial product.
- Nokinside 8y agoChip printer that would make IC's that are better than what amateur can make from readily available cheap components on a PCB board would be used in the industry first. There is small number of field-programmable analog array (FPAA) products and FPGA/FPAA hybrids in the market. I hope they become better and more available (never used one myself).
- pasabagi 8y agoI think the chemicals would be the rub. HF is very nasty, as is 'piranha solution'. Both are extremely corrosive, obviously - so it would be hard to build a 'printer' that could deal with the handling and disposal. Not to mention, a lot of the dopants are pretty nasty too.
- Tistel 8y agoThere are less dangerous ways to explore "building a CPU from scratch" that hit on the really interesting bits. "Digital Computer Electronics" by Malvino and Brown. You are given logic gates (and, or, nor, nand etc) and build up from there to a working CPU. The articles referenced about HF are terrifying. I am a programmer, but, have worked in a chemistry lap. Its just endless stinky stuff that will kill you in a variety of ways. The logic of how a CPU works is more interesting.
- q3k 8y ago> The logic of how a CPU works is more interesting. Maybe for you. I find silicon fabrication to be much more interesting.
- syntaxing 8y agoInstead of using all these dangerous chemicals, can you use use an alternative like Ion Beam Etch (IBE) or some sort of plasma etching system (given that a person can build one and has the money for everything like turbopumps and grids)? Or is it mandatory to use something like HF to etch?
- shortoncash 8y agoThis is incredible work. I would have loved to have attempted this when I was in college. The field seemed so inaccessible, and now it makes me happy to see some homebrewer accomplishing things like this.
- basementcat 8y agoI predict a future Hacker News submission titled "I turned my garage into an EPA Superfund Site"
- raverbashing 8y agoWell we had that Boy Scout once... not sure it turned into an EPA Superfund site though
- kens 8y agoYou should really read "The Radioactive Boy Scout", about a teenager who attempts to build a nuclear reactor. The EPA ends up dismantling his shed in moon suits. https://harpers.org/archive/1998/11/the-radioactive-boy-scout/ https://harpers.org/archive/1998/11/the-radioactive-boy-scou...
- DoctorOetker 8y agoThe Radioactive Boy Scout and Sam Zeloof are two complete opposites of the spectrum though
- John_KZ 8y agoLovely, I've always wanted to do something similar.
- kurthr 8y agoLots of comments on the previous article (before he had a chip to test) as well. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15990766 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15990766
- baybal2 8y agoI remember, there is a Swiss guy in HK who is trying to reanimate an abandoned nineties era fab for use by of opensource electronics.
- coldacid 8y agoCheers to this kid's drive and inventiveness, but I won't be at all surprised when his house becomes a Superfund site.
- ChrisGammell 8y agoHad a chance to interview Sam last week, he's as bright as you'd assume: https://theamphour.com/390-an-interview-with-sam-zeloof/ https://theamphour.com/390-an-interview-with-sam-zeloof/