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An automated chip factory intended for use in a self-replicating machine is only useful if it can produce chips from unprocessed ore. You can make your job a lo

An automated chip factory intended for use in a self-replicating machine is only useful if it can produce chips from unprocessed ore. You can make your job a lot easier if you design it to just run on silicon boules-- but those are almost as expensive per kilogram as finished packaged chips... So you need a furnace for refining sand, a chemical factory to produce the dopants, lithography equipment, clean rooms, ultraprecise steppers... Really, the problem here is the hidden complexity. It's not like you can look an obsolete chip foundry, and say, "Okay, so this facility is worth $100 million, and is about an acre of equipment, how do we miniaturize it?" That single foundry is the tip of a $100 billion pyramid. You can't just replicate the foundry, you have to replicate all the factories that built the stuff that went into the foundry.

rmason 13y ago
How this usually works is someone comes up with an entirely new way of accomplishing the task. Someone young or from outside the industry who doesn't know what they're trying to accomplish is impossible. When I look at how fast the 3D printer industry is going you never know. If you can currently print a house using concrete and in the near future print out a kidney who is to say you won't be able to make an 8086? http://www.wimp.com/printerhouse/ http://www.wimp.com/printerhouse/ http://www.livescience.com/41480-3d-printed-kidneys-take-small-steps.html http://www.livescience.com/41480-3d-printed-kidneys-take-sma...
- sbierwagen 13y ago
  Programmers typically don't have very good intuitions regarding the pace of change in other industries. Quoting myself (http://c1qfxugcgy0.tumblr.com/post/31187427192/the-enduring-tragedy-of-the-robotics-industry-is http://c1qfxugcgy0.tumblr.com/post/31187427192/the-enduring-...): Not every technology follows the price curve of computers— computing is the bizarre outlier. If you had predicted in 1970 that computers would be tens of millions of times cheaper per FLOP in the future, you would be a visionary, but if you predicted that jet airliners would cost $10, fit in your pocket, and fly at Mach 100, then you would be an idiot. Some things are just hard. Not everything gets 10X better per year for decades and decades. Most industries hit hard physical limitations long ago, and are improving either very slowly, or not at all. 3D printing is a particularly bad example of revolutionary change: it was invented by industry insiders, for decades was performed by exorbitantly expensive machines, and is mostly hyped based on the term "3D printing." Actual FDM machines are much less exciting, and aren't terribly useful, commercially.

rmason 13y ago

How this usually works is someone comes up with an entirely new way of accomplishing the task. Someone young or from outside the industry who doesn't know what they're trying to accomplish is impossible. When I look at how fast the 3D printer industry is going you never know. If you can currently print a house using concrete and in the near future print out a kidney who is to say you won't be able to make an 8086? http://www.wimp.com/printerhouse/ http://www.wimp.com/printerhouse/ http://www.livescience.com/41480-3d-printed-kidneys-take-small-steps.html http://www.livescience.com/41480-3d-printed-kidneys-take-sma...

sbierwagen 13y ago
Programmers typically don't have very good intuitions regarding the pace of change in other industries. Quoting myself (http://c1qfxugcgy0.tumblr.com/post/31187427192/the-enduring-tragedy-of-the-robotics-industry-is http://c1qfxugcgy0.tumblr.com/post/31187427192/the-enduring-...): Not every technology follows the price curve of computers— computing is the bizarre outlier. If you had predicted in 1970 that computers would be tens of millions of times cheaper per FLOP in the future, you would be a visionary, but if you predicted that jet airliners would cost $10, fit in your pocket, and fly at Mach 100, then you would be an idiot. Some things are just hard. Not everything gets 10X better per year for decades and decades. Most industries hit hard physical limitations long ago, and are improving either very slowly, or not at all. 3D printing is a particularly bad example of revolutionary change: it was invented by industry insiders, for decades was performed by exorbitantly expensive machines, and is mostly hyped based on the term "3D printing." Actual FDM machines are much less exciting, and aren't terribly useful, commercially.