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Making RAM at Home [video]

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Re: Making RAM at Home [video]

#131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the issue I have with people saying that solar power is "clean and eco friendly". It sure is, if you ignore the fact that you have to have a factory to make it where one of the *nicest* things around is the fucking hydrofluoric acid, and most of the rest will kill you instantly in trace amounts.

The technology is, the production is not but you can contain that, at least in theory. Compare that with gasoline that everytime you obtain energy from it you burn it out of existence and create a mess of the environment.

This is why we should have converted all the cars to run on propane, instead of scrapping them in favour of "cleaner greener diesels" 20 years ago when they started all the "scrappage scheme" bollocks.

The propane is going to get burnt anyway. May as well extract some useful work from it, and when you run a car off it they become ultra low emission.

Re: Making RAM at Home [video]

#132
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do but my days in the fab taught me that you do NOT want people to do this, considering the extremely dangerous chemicals involved. People have died changing EMPTY tanks of phosphine gas used for doping… and HF acid used for etch is another nightmare entirely.

I used to graduate at an institute having physicists as well as chemists, I gues it was no coincidence that only physicists operated with HF, one chemist told me that no chemist in their right mind would touch it

HF is routinely used in analytical labs; it's standard to microwave HF solutions for ICP digestions. It's not even the most hazardous reagent in my lab right now.

Now, perhaps this chemist meant that no chemist in their right mind would physically touch HF--in that case, I agree completely!

Re: Making RAM at Home [video]

#133

I only buy free-range artisanal DRAM at the DRAM farmer's market.

Did anyone forget that core memory is woven ? With knitting, beads and everything ? https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3173574.3174105

Magnetic core memory final form were single large perforated plates with many conductors plated on the ferrite surface through-holes, and only the vertical stack of bus wires were threaded through the plates. This meant weaving was less of an issue, and higher >1kiB modules were feasible in a smaller area. The main draw back is it sill had destructive read-once access, so always had higher latency in addition to being slow.

The DDR market will adapt, as China grey market state fab smells the opportunity. They have been counterfeiting cmos chips for decades already, and dram is not as complex as people like to assume.

Neuromorphic computing will likely kick over the LLM sand pile at some point, and all that discounted hardware will need re-homed. We can wait for the bubble to run its course, and actual investors realize they were conned. =3

Re: Making RAM at Home [video]

#134
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you haven't seen this one, I highly recommend it: Indistinguishable From Magic: Manufacturing Modern Computer Chips https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGFhc8R_uO4&t=2070s It's quite old but I think there is no modern version of it. I've tried posting to HN a few times but it hasn't gained traction for some reason, but I find it absolutely mind blowing.

Videos in general don’t get much traction here. Most of the time I don’t want to watch them in this context either, when other sites I do. Maybe it’s just I come here for the old web feel when video was costly, rare and short.

Yeah, I understand and partially agree.

However I've discovered wonderful gems like this RAM video.

Re: Making RAM at Home [video]

#135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did anyone forget that core memory is woven ? With knitting, beads and everything ? https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3173574.3174105

Magnetic core memory final form were single large perforated plates with many conductors plated on the ferrite surface through-holes, and only the vertical stack of bus wires were threaded through the plates. This meant weaving was less of an issue, and higher >1kiB modules were feasible in a smaller area. The main draw back is it sill had destructive read-once access, so always had higher latency in addition to bein…

> Neuromorphic computing will likely kick over the LLM sand pile at some point, and all that discounted hardware will need re-homed.

I don't see a lot of work going on in neuromorphic - there was some work at Intel, IIRC. Not saying you're wrong, but just wondering where you think it's going to come from?

Re: Making RAM at Home [video]

#136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Admit it, deep down, our inner engeering child also wants to build a semiconductor clean room ;)

I do but my days in the fab taught me that you do NOT want people to do this, considering the extremely dangerous chemicals involved. People have died changing EMPTY tanks of phosphine gas used for doping… and HF acid used for etch is another nightmare entirely.

I keep thinking that for home tinkering this is really the wrong approach. Surely there are other more DIY-friendly ways to make switches besides with semiconductors? Sure, they wouldn't achieve anywhere near the same density as SOTA semiconductors, but that's not really possible at home anyway.

Re: Making RAM at Home [video]

#137
post #12
post #5

I saw this video yesterday and considered posting it, but I wasn’t sure if it was appropriate for HN. This channel has another video where it shows how the clean room lab is created starting from a basic backyard shed, and that was truly astounding. The positive pressure to keep the number of particles low in someone’s backyard is almost mystical to me.

If you haven't seen this one, I highly recommend it: Indistinguishable From Magic: Manufacturing Modern Computer Chips https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGFhc8R_uO4&t=2070s It's quite old but I think there is no modern version of it. I've tried posting to HN a few times but it hasn't gained traction for some reason, but I find it absolutely mind blowing.

I rewatch that every year as a reminder of what we're capable of. Great video.

Re: Making RAM at Home [video]

#139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Magnetic core memory final form were single large perforated plates with many conductors plated on the ferrite surface through-holes, and only the vertical stack of bus wires were threaded through the plates. This meant weaving was less of an issue, and higher >1kiB modules were feasible in a smaller area. The main draw back is it sill had destructive read-once access, so always had higher latency in addition to bein…

> Neuromorphic computing will likely kick over the LLM sand pile at some point, and all that discounted hardware will need re-homed. I don't see a lot of work going on in neuromorphic - there was some work at Intel, IIRC. Not saying you're wrong, but just wondering where you think it's going to come from?

> just wondering where you think it's going to come from?

Will likely evolve like any regular biological system, and consume translated LLM weight sets into its initial training condition 3D propagation structure.

The speed at which this occurs will likely initially be measured in weeks due to slower growth state writes, but once bootstrapped the GC is self-propagating.

I normally don't like to speculate, but the barrier to entry would actually be much lower than traditional silicon fabrication processes. It was an old idea from science fiction, that until recently was highly impractical. Asimov was likely wrong about the physical process, but not about how it is made.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positronic_brain

Due to theoretical constant morphological changes under GC, one must acknowledge the inherent lack of safety such systems would pose. Have a nice day. =3

Re: Making RAM at Home [video]

#140
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jokes aside, seeing as this person has created their own clean room in a shed, and is making RAM, what exactly is stopping any company from doing this themselves and breaking into the RAM business? I'd pay less for RAM that wasn't "certified" in some official way, at least it works.

> what exactly is stopping any company from doing this themselves and breaking into the RAM business? nothing, except the terrible yields that they would obtain, and the lack of scale making the entire enterprise not profit generating (as the amount of profit per sale is too low if it even is positive, but you can't set it higher as there's cheaper, "better" ram available from pre-established fabs that do have econom…

Local, small-batch RAM! Top fermenting Get it at your local farmer's market!
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