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22-year-old builds chips in his parents' garage (2022)
- barelyauser 3y agoI have a feeling that making chips at home will require the ditching of silicon based technology. Yes, this will be accompanied by performance loss. Perhaps organic semiconductors have less complicated processes. Or techniques like molecular self assembly, nano imprinting, etc.
- t0e 3y agohttps://archive.ph/iGei9 https://archive.ph/iGei9
- SOLAR_FIELDS 3y agoIt really is wild what you can do in your garage these days. Since the early 2010’s there has been a true revolution in this space that has only accelerated over the last few years. I have an injection molding machine that I built in my garage for less than $1500 USD that has a 3 cubic inch injection volume, able to make a large variety of plastic components at small production scale using a mold I printed from my $500 USD resin printer. A guy I met at the maker space has a literal pick and place and wave soldering machine in his garage and he is etching wafers on his desktop CNC. Hardware has never been more accessible. Hardware is still really hard. But it’s definitely something someone with a software salary can bootstrap in their garage these days. Especially because I can go to JLCPCB and get some reasonably complex fully assembled prototype boards shipped to me in a week or two for $5-20 USD per unit. Ridiculously nice
- brailsafe 3y agoI wonder where I could get the salary needed to have a garage, seems like that's the important bit ;)
- DontchaKnowit 3y agoLive somewhere cheaper and you can make enough to have a garage by painting houses or mowing lawns.
- OccamsMirror 3y agoNot in Australia. Even rural is expensive.
- ekianjo 3y agoLeave Australia :-)
- 111111101101 3y agoThis is the answer. Young people especially need to realise that this country doesn't want them.
- dottjt 3y agoInterestingly, as a young Australian, I've thought about this a lot and I genuinely struggle to find a better country to live in. We have our share of problems, but compared to the problems of other countries, I can't help but feel they're significantly less. A large part of it being how isolated we are from the rest of the world and all the benefits that provides. Not to mention the low population density of the country as a whole.
- flask_manager 3y agoIt really depends what specific circumstances you are comparing. If you are looking at trades, low skill full time, or casual work, I dont think there is a better place to be. If you are comparing the lifestyle available from a full time skilled job (tech especially) its honestly not great. Work anywhere in Asia, and while your wage may be lower, what you get for it goes a whole lot further. Restaurants are a focus, but things like a regular cleaner, doorman, club memberships are a whole lot more accessible. Things that are really only available in Australia to generational wealth these days, are available to skilled employees. Work in western Europe, and the wages are slightly higher, and the cost of living is slightly lower; however the expectation for work-life balance is far better. 38hr weeks are very strict, with an expectation of flex time and time in lieu. with more weeks off, and better access to things like parental leave and study accommodations. People make poor comparisons to America, because its a very hard thing to generalize. From my personal experience as a skilled full time worker, there is not one metric where Australia is a clear winner, and many where its far behind. The top end of healthcare is better in the USA, and if you factor in the lower taxes cheaper too. Crime statistics are worse, but localized to places I have no reason to go... I would say that USA as country is worse, but if you only look at the experience of someone who already has a skilled job, then you come out far ahead in the states.
- mitthrowaway2 3y agoIndeed. The hardest part these days is getting access to a garage.
- chocolatelab82 3y agoI store a lot of crap in my garage.
- ccorcos 3y agoI’m constantly surprised how tech folks seem to undervalue the suburbs.
- dleslie 3y agoMost American suburbs are awful if you enjoy any sort of regular physical activity, and simply prefer to walk to the market instead of drive. They're amazing if you love sitting in traffic.
- resonious 3y agoSounds like they're also good if you want a garage to tinker in!
- trimethylpurine 3y agoI'm in a suburb. Not an expensive one. Downtown is a 20 minute drive in light traffic. Within a 10 minute walk there are office buildings, grocery stores, shopping mall, gyms, parks, hiking and biking trails, etc. There are many cities to choose from; some are better planned than others. Based on your comment I would guess that you've opted to live in one of the "cool" cities in America.
- xvedejas 3y agoThat you need to drive to downtown suggests you might not have much garage space after all?
- rbongers 3y agoI am surprised semiconductor engineers called it impossible. A cutting edge chip, sure, but a few thousand transistors?
- ta8903 3y agoImpossible for a teenager. This isn't like your everyday "kid makes a software startup" stories. He had to source all the machines, go through all the obscure documentation, understand how to test his yield, etc. He built his own photolithography machine ffs. I can't imagine the dedication required to go through this and believe in yourself every step of the way.
- dooglius 3y agoMore recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34907885 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34907885
- chasil 3y agoI hope he doesn't have to work these hours. That would be awful, even if you loved it. The risk of burnout would be very high, and not reasonable for such a profoundly knowledgeable resource. "We all take two years to develop one generation, how come you guys can do it in one or one-and-a-half year?" And they asked if some of your customer transfer technology to you or what not? And I told him, "No," I told him that, "That's not true." I think he probably implied we steal technology from customer, the way he talk. And I say, "I'll tell you why." I said that, "When we develop one node, basically you have some learning cycles. First, you do some simulation. And you have some idea, then you run wafers to prove that. So, you run a group of wafers according to simulation and you have some splits. The wafer runs through the fab, they come out and you measure them, you analyze them, and you try to improve and you run this again. This again, you run. So, this is learning cycle." At that time, "It takes about six learning cycle, roughly, to complete one generation." Of course, you had some short loops and not just one. I said that, "My R&D wafer in the fab run much faster than yours, because my R&D engineer works three shifts and you only work one shift. So, your R&D wafer move eight hours a day, my work/move 24-hours a day. So, my wafers go three times faster, even if you are twice smarter than me, I still beat you up." <laughter> https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102792671 https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/10279267...
- Condition1952 3y ago“Find something you love and you won’t work any day in your life”.
- hoc 3y agoBut HE still could buy from ASML... 40 years ago, one only had radios to disect and fat circuit boards to etch. Access to docs was really bad. And people had to be pros at 22 to overcome these home/garage limitations. So. Progress.
- ykl 3y agoIf you are wondering what Sam Zeloof is up to these days: he founded Atomic Semi [1] with Jim Keller (yes, _that_ Jim Keller). [1] https://atomicsemi.com/ https://atomicsemi.com/
- sadhorse 3y agoQuite hard to grasp what they are really trying to achieve there. They are building what kind of tools, and for whom?
- ip26 3y agoSome past discussion suggested there was an opportunity for very low volume production at much lower cost because the method doesn't use masks.
- xw3098 3y agoThere’s no way it’s lower cost. However what it could be is guaranteed line capacity and delivery dates. And if you’re doing small orders from a large foundry you don’t get that. Those things have value too and someone might be willing to pay a bit extra to get them. My main issue is semiconductor lines are fragile beasts that need constant tinkering. So if the system requires full time staff to keep running, that’s going to be really expensive.
- dang 3y agoRelated: 22-year-old builds chips in his parents’ garage - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36690206 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36690206 - July 2023 (3 comments) 22-year-old builds chips in his parents’ garage - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30043719 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30043719 - Jan 2022 (335 comments)
- blobbers 3y agoI mean this is a great story, and I'm happy for this guy, but isn't this a super dirty process? Is he going to have cancer in 8 years but will have built a chip from 1971? Seems like a bad trade-off.
- olyjohn 3y agoIsn't there PPE you can wear? How do they protect you in a real factory? There are gloves, suits and respirators, and it's all pretty cheap. Proper ventilation, that stuff isnt all that expensive.
- helsinkiandrew 3y agoAssuming you have decent ventilation and even basic PPE is this any worse than an average auto or paint shop though? Or even firefighting station!: https://apnews.com/article/firefighters-cancer-pfas-turnout-gear-chemicals-868e4eb6af158e7a34fb229c2dd79ebf https://apnews.com/article/firefighters-cancer-pfas-turnout-...
- kken 3y agoHe wasn't the first one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_znRopGtbE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_znRopGtbE Also, very well documenated more recent attempt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kx1TenvQXTg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kx1TenvQXTg
- mikewarot 3y agoI've been following home-made semiconductors since Jeri Ellsworth made her own NMOS FETs in 2010.[1] When Sam managed to make his own ICs, I was happy for him, and for the hobby. Now he seems to be on the verge of democratizing access to semiconductor production in very low volumes. I've got my own project to try out once I can get my hands on it.[2] Who knows, petaflop chips made in the garage could be right around the corner, in less than 2 decades! [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_znRopGtbE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_znRopGtbE [2] https://bitgrid.blogspot.com/ https://bitgrid.blogspot.com/
- RetroTechie 3y agoAbout [2], BitGrid: If I read correctly, that concept maps really well to LUTs as used in FPGAs (but note it's not the same!). Its author/inventor Mike Warot has the simple but useful idea of making the configuration space of such a device a simple memory array (like RAM or EEPROM cells). Write some bits to a memory location -> cell [x,y] in the device's grid is configured. This would make it trivial to control/interface such a 'compute grid' to traditional cpus. To a cpu it would just look like regular RAM. Anyone know if there's work towards applying that idea to FPGAs? It would basically evaporate the problem of [closed source FPGA vendor toolchains]. Obviously, bitstreams produced by FPGA vendor tools will do a somewhat similar thing. But what/how exactly is opaque. Not to mention encrypted bitstreams, read-protection & what have you. Hence require re-engineering effort for open source tool support. Turning this into a dead simple 1:1 mapping would be a huge step forward.
- xw3098 3y agoYou can have this now https://efabless.com/ https://efabless.com/
- mikewarot 3y agoI can't... you might be able to afford $10k, but right now, I had to think hard before spending $3 last night. I hope to learn enough Verilog/VHDL/RTL to take advantage of the Free Shuttle program they have[1] eventually. Currently, I'm wondering how to go from expressions to code I can load into a bitgrid. The thought of parsing code, building an AST, converting that to an acyclic directed graph of binary expressions, to actual bits to load the grid with.... overwhelms me, and has me putting it off. 8( I do have a working simulator, written in Pascal[2], that can run fairly quickly for toy problems on my desktop PC. So, there's been some progress. I strongly suspect I can get there, but need an accountability buddy to push me along. I used to be a self starter, but I stayed in an IT Admin job too long that crushed it out of me. [1] https://efabless.com/open_shuttle_program https://efabless.com/open_shuttle_program [2] https://github.com/mikewarot/Bitgrid https://github.com/mikewarot/Bitgrid
- tsss 3y agoIf my parents had bought me a $30k laser cutter I would be too. But I can't even afford the garage. If you want to worship a DIY-god then look up Jerry Ellsworth. She's the real deal, unlike this guy, and makes chips with her own dumpster-dived repaired machinery, not with contacts to the local University's million dollar research lab.
- elteto 3y agoWhat a negative and off-putting comment. You are dunking on the work of a teenager putting in time and effort to do something incredible by any measure. You need to take a deep, hard look inside of you, what’s spilling out is not nice. Why do we have to pick between one or the other? I celebrate the work of both of them. And with your attitude, no, most likely you wouldn’t have built anything with a $30k laser cutter.
- 93po 3y agoHe makes a point but it's better described as "it's awesome that this young man has had the drive and curiosity to do so well with the abilities and resources he's been gifted"
- rfrey 3y agoI suspect that if you had access to a $30k laser cutter you'd be saying you could be awesome too, if you only had a $250k metal printer.
- ALittleLight 3y agoThe article mentions she was an inspiration for the 22 year old and that she says of him he has taken her work to the next level. I'm curious, what work were you doing that was stymied by your parents lack of funding?
- vitiral 3y agoSam was one of my main inspirations in starting http://civboot.org http://civboot.org. Awesome to see he's managed to make his own chip now!
- mendigou 3y agoAs someone with 0 idea about semiconductors development: How does making your own chip compare to using FPGAs when you need low quantities? What things can you do with your own IC that you cannot do with FPGAs?
- cakeAndEatIt 3y agoIt's more of a principle achievement, like, "hey Intel, come cause a shooting spree at my local grocery store while I'm there, because, anybody who did similar DIY things in the automobile-hydrogen space met a similar fate from that industry!" [1] 1. https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2022/jun/02/facebook-posts/salters-buffalo-slaying-was-unrelated-his-work-wat/ https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2022/jun/02/facebook-p...
- danielnoiz 3y agoOff topic, but why do the pictures in the article look like that? Is that HDR? It's so weird to me that it's distracting from the text.