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From a business perspective, I agree that it’s a fool’s errand. But imagine being able to design and tangibly build your own computer, at home. 6400 euros is pe

From a business perspective, I agree that it’s a fool’s errand. But imagine being able to design and tangibly build your own computer, at home. 6400 euros is pennies for a business, but exorbitant for an individual. I believe the way Sam Zeloof circumvents the enormous amount of capital needed for a chip fab by relying on modern technology to create 1970’s technology. He simply mounts a cheap digital projector onto a cheap microscope - they didn’t have that advantage in the 70s, and thus it cost millions to start a chip fab. My point is that it could conceivably be doable for an individual to create old computing technology with the advantages of living in the modern world. I certainly don’t have the drive to do it, but I wish someone did.

nwiswell 2y ago
You'd spend far more than 6400 euros to do it at home. If you did it often and didn't count your own labor costs, then maybe the average cost would be less, but that's an incredibly specific situation. > I believe the way Sam Zeloof circumvents the enormous amount of capital needed for a chip fab by relying on modern technology to create 1970’s technology Yes, exactly. Old lithographic technology is so crude that you can even use modern high resolution laserjets to print masks (10000 dpi is less than 3 microns). Even so, 1970s-era CVD, PVD, and plasma etch is still quite complicated, and CMP is impossible (it hadn't even been invented yet). So the devices you can create are significantly integration-constrained.
- _Microft 2y ago
  Do you have examples for models of laser printers can actually achieve a resolution of 10000dpi? It doesn't need to be office equipment. Any example would suffice as I so far thought that laser printouts were limited to a maximum resolution between 1200 and 2400dpi.
  - nwiswell 2y ago
    Not at home, but at professional printing houses absolutely. This isn't hypothetical, I've done it -- in grad school we would send out (I believe) 30000 dpi print jobs on transparent polyester film, and then adhere those to glass blanks to create cheap masks for MEMS fabrication. We had an old Canon i-line lithographic aligner that accepted the glass blanks. I think the print jobs cost us about $100 each. Here's the first Google result for a vendor (I don't remember who we used). There's a price list on their page and it looks like they have capability up to 50,800 dpi. https://www.fineline-imaging.com/plotting_services.shtml https://www.fineline-imaging.com/plotting_services.shtml
    - xw38011 2y ago
      If you're willing to go 10um then it's even easier and one can use a DLP to go maskless. https://hacker-fab.gitbook.io/hacker-fab-space/fab-toolkit/patterning https://hacker-fab.gitbook.io/hacker-fab-space/fab-toolkit/p...

nwiswell 2y ago

You'd spend far more than 6400 euros to do it at home. If you did it often and didn't count your own labor costs, then maybe the average cost would be less, but that's an incredibly specific situation. > I believe the way Sam Zeloof circumvents the enormous amount of capital needed for a chip fab by relying on modern technology to create 1970’s technology Yes, exactly. Old lithographic technology is so crude that you can even use modern high resolution laserjets to print masks (10000 dpi is less than 3 microns). Even so, 1970s-era CVD, PVD, and plasma etch is still quite complicated, and CMP is impossible (it hadn't even been invented yet). So the devices you can create are significantly integration-constrained.

_Microft 2y ago
Do you have examples for models of laser printers can actually achieve a resolution of 10000dpi? It doesn't need to be office equipment. Any example would suffice as I so far thought that laser printouts were limited to a maximum resolution between 1200 and 2400dpi.
- nwiswell 2y ago
  Not at home, but at professional printing houses absolutely. This isn't hypothetical, I've done it -- in grad school we would send out (I believe) 30000 dpi print jobs on transparent polyester film, and then adhere those to glass blanks to create cheap masks for MEMS fabrication. We had an old Canon i-line lithographic aligner that accepted the glass blanks. I think the print jobs cost us about $100 each. Here's the first Google result for a vendor (I don't remember who we used). There's a price list on their page and it looks like they have capability up to 50,800 dpi. https://www.fineline-imaging.com/plotting_services.shtml https://www.fineline-imaging.com/plotting_services.shtml
  - xw38011 2y ago
    If you're willing to go 10um then it's even easier and one can use a DLP to go maskless. https://hacker-fab.gitbook.io/hacker-fab-space/fab-toolkit/patterning https://hacker-fab.gitbook.io/hacker-fab-space/fab-toolkit/p...