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Turning old processes into a startup is what Melexis did 30+ years ago: they acquired obsolete fabs in Eastern(?) Europe and repurposed them to make sensors, wh

Turning old processes into a startup is what Melexis did 30+ years ago: they acquired obsolete fabs in Eastern(?) Europe and repurposed them to make sensors, which don’t need state of the art processes. The 180nm open source eFabless shuttle runs that are sponsored by Google are done by X-fab, which is owned by Melexis’ founder as well. I don’t see how this garage stuff (impressive as it is!) can be turned into a startup. It’s not as if there is some kind of breakthrough here?

jdboyd 5y ago
I wonder if it could support specialty audio chip manufacturing.
- eurasiantiger 5y ago
  Exit via Cirrus Logic.
- exDM69 5y ago
  A company called Alfa in Latvia does this, they use outdated semiconductor fabs (probably from Soviet union era) to make reproductions of vintage synth chips from the 80s, CEM33xx etc.
deleted 5y ago
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nostrademons 5y ago
Would need a change in the environment. There's no economic reason to do it now, when we've got global supply chains and established businesses with decades of IP. There'd be a strong reason to do it if those supply chains collapsed and we needed to distribute semiconductor manufacturing across a number of separate low-profile sites, if, for example, we entered war, civil disorder, or a migration crisis.
wallacoloo 5y ago
> It’s not as if there is some kind of breakthrough here The [potential] breakthrough is in accessibility. Like GP said, this is a non-cleanroom process. Package it up into something reproducible and sell the entire 10um node for 6 figures and you'll have a few takers (unis, high networth enthusiasts). Get it down to 5 figures and you can break into some of the hobbyist market. Iterate/improve the node from there. The path from here to unicorn startup is not really easy to imagine, but getting from here to cottage industry has some sliver of a chance if Sam wanted to go that route.
- tverbeure 5y ago
  Making demos is easy, making a product is hard. Universities could totally do what he is doing. But that’s still far removed from commercializing this tech (unless the product is “a mini fab for universities for educational purposes only.”) For a real product, you’d need to meet all kinds of reliability requirements: life time, voltage range, temperature range, parameter control etc. (Once again: what he’s doing is awesome. It’s just important to keep some perspective.)

jdboyd 5y ago

I wonder if it could support specialty audio chip manufacturing.

eurasiantiger 5y ago
Exit via Cirrus Logic.
exDM69 5y ago
A company called Alfa in Latvia does this, they use outdated semiconductor fabs (probably from Soviet union era) to make reproductions of vintage synth chips from the 80s, CEM33xx etc.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

nostrademons 5y ago

Would need a change in the environment. There's no economic reason to do it now, when we've got global supply chains and established businesses with decades of IP. There'd be a strong reason to do it if those supply chains collapsed and we needed to distribute semiconductor manufacturing across a number of separate low-profile sites, if, for example, we entered war, civil disorder, or a migration crisis.

wallacoloo 5y ago

> It’s not as if there is some kind of breakthrough here The [potential] breakthrough is in accessibility. Like GP said, this is a non-cleanroom process. Package it up into something reproducible and sell the entire 10um node for 6 figures and you'll have a few takers (unis, high networth enthusiasts). Get it down to 5 figures and you can break into some of the hobbyist market. Iterate/improve the node from there. The path from here to unicorn startup is not really easy to imagine, but getting from here to cottage industry has some sliver of a chance if Sam wanted to go that route.

tverbeure 5y ago
Making demos is easy, making a product is hard. Universities could totally do what he is doing. But that’s still far removed from commercializing this tech (unless the product is “a mini fab for universities for educational purposes only.”) For a real product, you’d need to meet all kinds of reliability requirements: life time, voltage range, temperature range, parameter control etc. (Once again: what he’s doing is awesome. It’s just important to keep some perspective.)