But 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.
22-year-old builds chips in his parents' garage (2022)
11–20 of 211 posts
Re: 22-year-old builds chips in his parents' garage (2022)
#12It 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 $5…
The main issue I have with all that is that one could have had/home-built most of that in the 80s already (except for the resins).
So in a way this all is more about online orders as well as global access and visibility than about the actual tech.
Wasted decades in a way. Guess we needed to build the interwebs first.
Re: 22-year-old builds chips in his parents' garage (2022)
#13It 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 $5…
> he is etching wafers on his desktop CNC
Wait do you mean etching wafers, or milling PCBs? One of those things you listed is not like the others.
Re: 22-year-old builds chips in his parents' garage (2022)
#14If you are wondering what Sam Zeloof is up to these days: he founded Atomic Semi [1] with Jim Keller (yes, _that_ Jim Keller).
Re: 22-year-old builds chips in his parents' garage (2022)
#15Indeed. The hardest part these days is getting access to a garage.
I store a lot of crap in my garage.
Re: 22-year-old builds chips in his parents' garage (2022)
#16If 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/
Quite hard to grasp what they are really trying to achieve there. They are building what kind of tools, and for whom?
Re: 22-year-old builds chips in his parents' garage (2022)
#17I 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.
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Re: 22-year-old builds chips in his parents' garage (2022)
#18Related:
22-year-old builds chips in his parents’ garage - 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 - Jan 2022 (335 comments)
Re: 22-year-old builds chips in his parents' garage (2022)
#19It 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 $5…
May I ask how you do this, specifically? What machine do you use for injection molding, and how do you make the moulds?
Very interested in doing this myself.
(Also interested in specific recommendations for a desktop pick n place if anyone has some)
Re: 22-year-old builds chips in his parents' garage (2022)
#20It 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 $5…
> he is etching wafers on his desktop CNC Wait do you mean etching wafers, or milling PCBs? One of those things you listed is not like the others.
Given the linked article is about a 22 year old making a 1,500 transistor IC, etching wafers for a 40 year old with a FAANG salary doesn't seem that far fetched!
It'd have to be a really clean garage tho