6 ms·

The cost of making chips at 100nm+, 90nm, 45nm, etc, is almost indifferent. It actually gets cheaper with smaller sizes because you can fit more chips in the sa

The cost of making chips at 100nm+, 90nm, 45nm, etc, is almost indifferent. It actually gets cheaper with smaller sizes because you can fit more chips in the same number of waffles. The problem described by the article is that 10nm is already so small that we are hitting the barrier of what's physically possible.

rwmj 12y ago
What (I think) I mean by the question is this: Why can't I have a $1M machine sitting in the corner of my lab which turns out 800nm chips on demand? Can the technology which in 1990 was incredibly demanding now be turned into a product, thus vastly opening up the chip market, albeit for "obsolete" varieties of circuits.
- CapitalistCartr 12y ago
  Making chips requires a large, expensive fab plant. Using it to make something as obsolete as that would be more expensive than just making a couple generations old chips; perhaps 30-50 nanometers. But no matter what it makes, those plants are expensive still.
  - williadc 12y ago
    I think the point that the OP is missing is that Silicon manufacturing is extremely complex, requiring 1000's of steps, tons of water and electricity, and extremely pure materials. That's not something you can fit in a lab, let alone a machine within the lab. To give you a sense of scale, I ride past Intel's research fab (Ronler Acres) in Oregon and the Hillsboro airport on the way to work. The fab is bigger than the airport, and even that fab does not contain all the equipment necessary to manufacture chips for public consumption. There are separate plants for package and testing.
    - adestefan 12y ago
      And some very nasty chemicals.
      - stcredzero 12y ago
        Considering the investment concentrated in such facilities and the stringent requirements of clean rooms, the 911 attacks would gave done much worse economic damage by targeting those facilities.
        lmm 12y ago
        Are you including all the damage of the TSA and the wars that resulted from 911?
        stcredzero 12y ago
        You still would have had the TSA and the wars, plus an ongoing economic impact on the cost of chip production. I'm not saying that there wasn't a lot of economic impact. I'm saying there could have been more.
  - rwmj 12y ago
    Look at this ~6000nm Intel plant from the late 1970s. It was extremely high tech at the time, but nothing there seems inherently like it cannot be fully automated, simplified and shrunk down to my $1M FAB machine: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ll_-_ngu4Gg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ll_-_ngu4Gg (Starts about 7 mins in)
    - kanzure 12y ago
      Look at this ~6000nm Intel plant from the late 1970s. It was extremely high tech at the time, but nothing there seems inherently like it cannot be fully automated, simplified and shrunk down to my $1M FAB machine. You can get down much lower than $1 million if you're willing to live with a feature size of 10+ microns. http://code.google.com/p/homecmos/ http://code.google.com/p/homecmos/ http://homecmos.drawersteak.com/wiki/Main_Page http://homecmos.drawersteak.com/wiki/Main_Page http://diyhpl.us/wiki/homecmos/ http://diyhpl.us/wiki/homecmos/ The ghetto method is "point a projector through the top of a microscope" so that you don't have to bother with photomasks. Not counting the other steps. irc.freenode.net #homecmos ... although they are taking a break for a while, so I also recommend ##hplusroadmap and #dlp3dprinting and #reprap for now. Btw, there's a youtube feature for "start 7 minutes in" like this: https://youtube.com/watch?v=ll_-_ngu4Gg&t=7m https://youtube.com/watch?v=ll_-_ngu4Gg&t=7m
    - ChuckMcM 12y ago
      It's a lot less than a million dollars. You can fab transistors at home with a bit of patience. A number of universities have done this as part of an undergraduate class. It would be interesting to build a single metal layer process for 120mm wafers (DVD sized). Something like a 'makerbot' but for simple chips. The tricky bit is that you really want to use things like hydrofluoric acid and getting ones hands on that stuff is time consuming. Something that with the liberties of the mid-20th century and the technology of the 21st century would be possible, but not the other way around.
      - sitkack 12y ago
        I am working on a thought experiment for holographic FPGA type device that would be pretty much a DVD and it would be programmed in a regular DVD burner.
- Dylan16807 12y ago
  You could do that, or you could get an FPGA that runs faster at a lower price per unit and probably holds more circuitry.
flyinglizard 12y ago
Yes, you can fit more chips on lower nm, but you spend lots of money on tooling and suffer from lower yields compared to high nm processes. The cost of developing and tooling a modern, competitive ASIC, if you need a relatively modern process, can be tens of millions of dollars (not counting the IP development itself, just bringing to production).
retroencabulato 12y ago
No way is 28nm cheaper than 32nm per chip. Even though the die size shrinks, the process is much more expensive. Also, s/waffles/wafers/

rwmj 12y ago

What (I think) I mean by the question is this: Why can't I have a $1M machine sitting in the corner of my lab which turns out 800nm chips on demand? Can the technology which in 1990 was incredibly demanding now be turned into a product, thus vastly opening up the chip market, albeit for "obsolete" varieties of circuits.

CapitalistCartr 12y ago
Making chips requires a large, expensive fab plant. Using it to make something as obsolete as that would be more expensive than just making a couple generations old chips; perhaps 30-50 nanometers. But no matter what it makes, those plants are expensive still.
- williadc 12y ago
  I think the point that the OP is missing is that Silicon manufacturing is extremely complex, requiring 1000's of steps, tons of water and electricity, and extremely pure materials. That's not something you can fit in a lab, let alone a machine within the lab. To give you a sense of scale, I ride past Intel's research fab (Ronler Acres) in Oregon and the Hillsboro airport on the way to work. The fab is bigger than the airport, and even that fab does not contain all the equipment necessary to manufacture chips for public consumption. There are separate plants for package and testing.
  - adestefan 12y ago
    And some very nasty chemicals.
    - stcredzero 12y ago
      Considering the investment concentrated in such facilities and the stringent requirements of clean rooms, the 911 attacks would gave done much worse economic damage by targeting those facilities.
      - lmm 12y ago
        Are you including all the damage of the TSA and the wars that resulted from 911?
        stcredzero 12y ago
        You still would have had the TSA and the wars, plus an ongoing economic impact on the cost of chip production. I'm not saying that there wasn't a lot of economic impact. I'm saying there could have been more.
- rwmj 12y ago
  Look at this ~6000nm Intel plant from the late 1970s. It was extremely high tech at the time, but nothing there seems inherently like it cannot be fully automated, simplified and shrunk down to my $1M FAB machine: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ll_-_ngu4Gg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ll_-_ngu4Gg (Starts about 7 mins in)
  - kanzure 12y ago
    Look at this ~6000nm Intel plant from the late 1970s. It was extremely high tech at the time, but nothing there seems inherently like it cannot be fully automated, simplified and shrunk down to my $1M FAB machine. You can get down much lower than $1 million if you're willing to live with a feature size of 10+ microns. http://code.google.com/p/homecmos/ http://code.google.com/p/homecmos/ http://homecmos.drawersteak.com/wiki/Main_Page http://homecmos.drawersteak.com/wiki/Main_Page http://diyhpl.us/wiki/homecmos/ http://diyhpl.us/wiki/homecmos/ The ghetto method is "point a projector through the top of a microscope" so that you don't have to bother with photomasks. Not counting the other steps. irc.freenode.net #homecmos ... although they are taking a break for a while, so I also recommend ##hplusroadmap and #dlp3dprinting and #reprap for now. Btw, there's a youtube feature for "start 7 minutes in" like this: https://youtube.com/watch?v=ll_-_ngu4Gg&t=7m https://youtube.com/watch?v=ll_-_ngu4Gg&t=7m
  - ChuckMcM 12y ago
    It's a lot less than a million dollars. You can fab transistors at home with a bit of patience. A number of universities have done this as part of an undergraduate class. It would be interesting to build a single metal layer process for 120mm wafers (DVD sized). Something like a 'makerbot' but for simple chips. The tricky bit is that you really want to use things like hydrofluoric acid and getting ones hands on that stuff is time consuming. Something that with the liberties of the mid-20th century and the technology of the 21st century would be possible, but not the other way around.
    - sitkack 12y ago
      I am working on a thought experiment for holographic FPGA type device that would be pretty much a DVD and it would be programmed in a regular DVD burner.
Dylan16807 12y ago
You could do that, or you could get an FPGA that runs faster at a lower price per unit and probably holds more circuitry.

flyinglizard 12y ago

Yes, you can fit more chips on lower nm, but you spend lots of money on tooling and suffer from lower yields compared to high nm processes. The cost of developing and tooling a modern, competitive ASIC, if you need a relatively modern process, can be tens of millions of dollars (not counting the IP development itself, just bringing to production).

retroencabulato 12y ago

No way is 28nm cheaper than 32nm per chip. Even though the die size shrinks, the process is much more expensive. Also, s/waffles/wafers/