Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

22-year-old builds chips in his parents' garage (2022)

wired.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 211 posts

Re: 22-year-old builds chips in his parents' garage (2022)

#121

Post by RetroTechie »

mikewarot wrote: post #75

I'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…

About [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.

Re: 22-year-old builds chips in his parents' garage (2022)

#122

Post by sgt »

dottjt wrote: post #64
111111101101 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the answer. Young people especially need to realise that this country doesn't want them.

Interestingly, 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 cou…

Come here to South Africa. In fact a lot of South African "expats" are moving back. Many, many places are extremely decent and lifestyle can be excellent.

Re: 22-year-old builds chips in his parents' garage (2022)

#123

Post by elteto »

tsss wrote: post #118

If 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.

What 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.

Re: 22-year-old builds chips in his parents' garage (2022)

#124

Post by moffkalast »

brailsafe wrote: post #5
SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #4

It 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…

I wonder where I could get the salary needed to have a garage, seems like that's the important bit ;)

Simple, just inherit a house with a garage :P

Re: 22-year-old builds chips in his parents' garage (2022)

#125

Post by doubled112 »

checkyoursudo wrote: post #99
saulpw wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one parks in the garage in the suburbs :) They either park in the driveway or on the street, both of which have ample room to store vehicles.

I tried parking in my garage for a while, but the car took up too much valuable space.

This is it. My garage is full of kid's stuff. I don't have a backyard for a shed, plus my landlords installed shelving on all three sides, some not above car roof level.

If we want to park a car in there, it's about an hour of moving stuff out of the way. I stand at the back as a spotter while my wife drives at me. Once she hit me, she turns the car off and climbs out through the back seat. I then climb over the roof of the car.

I wish I was making this up. Glad it's 12 years old with no sun roof. I don't have to feel bad about sliding over it.

Re: 22-year-old builds chips in his parents' garage (2022)

#126

Post by yterdy »

ccorcos wrote: post #22
mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #6

Indeed. The hardest part these days is getting access to a garage.

I’m constantly surprised how tech folks seem to undervalue the suburbs.

Suburbs aren't defined by having personal space. That can be achieved in cities and small towns with in-fill development of high square-footage apartments, n-plexes, and townhouses, or collective workspaces. The suburbs that people complain about are car-centric and are generally underfunded in the long-term, putting significant burdens on municipal and state finances for things like infrastructure maintenance (roads, sewers, etc.). Every suburban garage/city parking space pair is a half-dozen kids without up-to-date science textbooks and equipment.

Re: 22-year-old builds chips in his parents' garage (2022)

#128

Post by vitiral »

barelyauser wrote: post #2

I 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.

Thin film lithography is the most promising IMO. Low temperature and can be done on glass instead of purified silicone.

Re: 22-year-old builds chips in his parents' garage (2022)

#129

Post by kjkjadksj »

dleslie wrote: post #24
ccorcos wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m constantly surprised how tech folks seem to undervalue the suburbs.

Most 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.

Plenty of suburbs are walkable. I live in one with three grocery stores and a farmers market in walking distance.

Re: 22-year-old builds chips in his parents' garage (2022)

#130

Post by kjkjadksj »

dottjt wrote: post #62
dleslie wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most 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.

I think the key is to have everything delivered to you. Once you figure that out, suburbs are great. Of course, it's not equivalent to being able to walk to places, but I feel the pros outweigh the cons in terms of what you do get from the suburbs.

There are plenty of suburbs where you can also walk to places.
Post reply on HN