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

141–150 of 211 posts

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

#141

Post by reactordev »

refurb wrote: post #98
reactordev wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>”I think the key is to have everything delivered to you.“ This is why we can’t have nice things. We simply can’t rely on a class of workers to dote on us simply because we fancy living in the burbs. The amount of waste just so you can get your instacart. The reality is near 8% mortgages have put suburbs with garages out of reach for almost everyone without a trust fund or selling their startup.

What’s the difference between delivery in the city versus the suburbs? Does less distance make it ok?

When I get some goods delivered in the city, it’s via bike messenger. When I get goods delivered via suburbs, it’s via F-150s.

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

#142

Post by xw3098 »

vasco wrote: post #84
15155 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you only need 10 chips, you may just be able to use 50 or even 500 FPGAs. 500 VU19P will cost less than 5 million.

Not if you want to put it somewhere small like a satellite or bunch of other things.

https://roboticsandautomationnews.com/2020/06/09/xilinx-laun...

Xilinx launches ‘industry’s first’ 20 nanometer space-grade FPGA chip

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

#143

Post by xw3098 »

a_humean wrote: post #100
Aerbil313 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you imply creative people are a special breed who are immune to attention engineering?

They are just saying that if you assume this following: * There is a rough fixed % of people that are capable of doing interesting things and maybe useful things * There are minimum levels of resources, time, and comfort that enables you to do interesting things * The current population that enjoys those resources isn't actually that different from the population at large in terms of that % Assuming all of that, if y…

You should read this shorty story:

https://www.abelard.org/asimov.php

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

#144

Post by xw3098 »

tjrgergw wrote: post #135
trimethylpurine wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in a suburb. Not an expensive one. Downtown is a 20 minute drive in light traffic. Within a 10 minute walk there are office buildings, grocery stores, shopping mall, gyms, parks, hiking and biking trails, etc. There are many cities to choose from; some are better planned than others. Based on your comment I would guess that you've opted to live in one of the "cool" cities in America.

Would you please share which city is this, that has everything within 10 minute walk in its suburbs? I'm a European who's lived in an "American downtown" because I was told the suburbs are horrible, but what you're describing sounds great.

Price is relative. That could be Los Altos, California. Which is very nice, walkable with garages, great parks and outdoors, but not what most people would call affordable. :)

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

#145

Post by toast0 »

tjrgergw wrote: post #134
mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #6

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

Oh man such a funny joke. It's funny because it's true. That said, as a European the meme of "they started in their garage" always sounded so American. Maybe that's what Europe is lacking in terms of entrepreneurship - garages.

Yes, but also no. The US has a basic fluidity of business. You can build things at home (in your garage, if you have one) and try to sell them and establish a formal business later, if the business justifies the process. For a one person business, there's not really a lot of requirements to formalize a sole proprietor business either: often a local business license (which is mostly guaranteed issue and just a tax collection point), a 'doing business as' filing if not using the person's name, and obtaining a tax id if needed (the IRS will issue one online in minutes, as I understand it), hiring people comes with more requirements.

Being able to start small and informally allows many more businesses to start.

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

#146

Post by xw3098 »

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…

You can have this now https://efabless.com/

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

#147

Post by toast0 »

simultsop wrote: post #53
15155 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.smallsmt.biz/products/ or any similar Shenzhen special. Buy bigger over smaller. Buy, don't build. There will be a handful of recommendations for the Opulo Lumen/OpenPNP: avoid them. Avoid everything but ballscrew designs: you will spend an annoying amount of time trying to calibrate a belt-driven design and calibration will never stick. Please, do not make the mistake I did: get something with CL feeders…

I thought the entire plan of independence is building yourself and not buying at all.

That works, maybe, if you're a giant of indusrtry... Hyundai doesn't have to buy ram for its cars, it can build it.

But if you're small, you can't build most of what you need, and you should not build what you can buy that's better than whaf you can build, and you may as well buy things that you can build as good unless the cost to build is much less.

Sometimes it's fun to build things instead of buying them, and that'a ok. But if your goal is to do X, you're better off spending time on X than spending time building tools you could have bought. (Unless building the tools builds requisite knowledge)

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

#148

Post by yterdy »

kjkjadksj wrote: post #131
yterdy wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Plenty of car centric suburbs do fine with the budget too. You got suburbs in california where homes are $2m. They aren’t hurting for road budget. High school class offerings in such a district might look downright collegiate from the additional funding the parents raise for the local school.

There are several contentious aspects to this characterization:

1) California is a noted outlier. The tax base/road budget ratio does not scale well to the rest of the country.

2) The wealth of affluent suburbs is driven by the cities they surround. The cities generate enough wealth to nominally support the market rate labor that keep them running AND the professional/managerial class that cut and run.

3) The top quintile or two of earners are likelier to live in newer developments, where the cost of maintenance has not built up yet. As regions become older and less desirable, the affluent leave and are replaced by the less-so, just as replacement costs come due. This model is a burden on the state and national levels because it's so prevalent.

If, instead, the model were to have most people living were their wealth was generated - and therefore have amenities scale to means more closely - you would have fewer extremely wealthy individuals and families but a more sustainable and equitable society. I know this is anathema to many, who value getting ahead over getting together.

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

#150

Post by 93po »

elteto wrote: post #123
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…

He makes a point but it's better described as "it's awesome that this young man has had the drive and curiosity to do so well with the abilities and resources he's been gifted"
Post reply on HN