Home Chip Fab

http://sam.zeloof.xyz/category/semiconductor/

by JabavuAdams • 7 years ago

566 131 7 years ago

sam.zeloof.xyz

gen3• 7 years ago

This is awesome! It looks like he did most of this before going to college, amazing!

bogomipz7• 7 years ago

This is really fascinating. I apologize if this is a silly question but under the Fabrication section there is a pic titled "physical structure(Texas Instruments, 1997.)" My question is why do all of the components always look so "puffy" or "fuzzy" in these chip zoom-in pics? I guess I'm always surprised that such a precision process produces something with such imperfect looking shapes. Or are these slightly amorphous shapes just a distortion produced by a scanning electron microscope?

EDIT: This is the pic I was asking about: http://sam.zeloof.xyz/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/na_1.png

Kirby642• 7 years ago

You're referring to the fact that the edges aren't really sharp and are kind of 'soft', right? Like, everything isn't 90 degree angles and is kinda rippley in places?

If so, that's not an SEM issue, that's just what it looks like. Photo exposure by it's very nature doesn't edge things 100% properly, diffraction or tiny misalignments causes stuff to end up being 'soft'.

Also, keep in mind that was from 1997. Fab tech has gotten way better; although we don't have a scale reference, I imagine if you were to make the same device on modern tech everything would look a lot 'sharper'. You still can't get away from some softness though.

bogomipz7• 7 years ago

"You're referring to the fact that the edges aren't really sharp and are kind of 'soft', right? Like, everything isn't 90 degree angles and is kinda rippley in places?"

Yes to both of these questions. "Soft" is probably a better way to articulate this, thanks. I'm not following the explanation of this being caused by photography however. Is this specific to photography at this scale?

"I imagine if you were to make the same device on modern tech everything would look a lot 'sharper."

I don't have an example handy however I have seen more recent micrographs and they display the same "softness" and lack of true 90 degree angles etc.

PhaseLockk• 7 years ago

I can't see the image you're referring to at the moment, but I imagine the fuzziness you are seeing is due to this fact: chips perform better if the features are smaller. Because of this, manufacturers want to make chip features as small as they can without causing failures, which means that you are manufacturing things at the scale that your manufacturing precision is barely sufficient, which means that the components look ugly, but they (mostly) work.

fengazer3• 7 years ago

This. Every step in fabrication has limits on its resolution beyond the resolution of the machine exposing the polymer resist.

The resist has a finite thickness (often comparable to the size of the feature you are trying to make).

The developer solution works downwards through the exposed resist, but also outwards at the edges (where you will have some proximity effect in the exposure).

Deposited metal or insulator sometimes sticks to both the bottom of the pit and the top of the resist without a clean break, or contains chunks or grains that make the coating uneven.

Wet chemical etchants don't etch straight down, and often create rounded corners in cross-section.

Every aspect of this has decades of optimization behind it, and its success in any one fabrication run is vulnerable to a frustrating number of variables. If there's an SEM cross-section of a device in a paper, it's likely because fabricating it was an accomplishment, and/or the design is in some way new (not ruling out other reasons of course: there's also "we have an SEM and not a lot else to put in the paper").

TL;DR: I agree. These things are very small and if we could make the corners sharper, that would remove one major barrier to making them even smaller. And then they wouldn't look so tidy anymore.

pjc50• 7 years ago

Necessarily it is operating at the limit of precision. If it wasn't blurry, you'd keep making it smaller until the blurring starts to become a problem again.

fengazer3• 7 years ago

This sums it up best.

Junk_Collector2• 7 years ago

As mentioned in other posts, the process of making these types of devices tend to produce rounded structures. This is a byproduct of using Ion beams, deposition, lithography, etc in manufacture.

BUT, the image is also made worse by how the image is captured. The picture you are looking at is a FIB (Focused Ion Beam) cut cross-section of a transistor which is then imaged by a SEM (scanning electron microscope). Probably in one of their fancy dual source beam devices. Depending on how you cut with the FIB, you can also push material downwards into lower layers and create a waterfall effect that will blur edges. It's can be very noticeable in rookie cuts but doesn't look like a major impact here.

Imaging with the SEM itself can also cause distortion and blurring as trapped charge accumulates on the surface and deflects the electron beam slightly. You can see this where the edges get increasingly bright because charges gather and become trapped at the boundary of the conductive and insulating layers. The image isn't sharp enough for me to tell if that is poly-silicon or aluminum contact traces.

bogomipz7• 7 years ago

"As mentioned in other posts, the process of making these types of devices tend to produce rounded structures. This is a byproduct of using Ion beams, deposition, lithography, etc in manufacture."

Thanks for the detailed response. Might you have a link to one of those other posts or some other resources that talks about how these processes tend to produce rounded structures?

foobarbecue2• 7 years ago

404 :-(

foobarbecue2• 7 years ago

Woah, apparently this is because my workplace has added this website to the super-block-without-even-telling-you list...

irq• 7 years ago

I bet it's the .xyz tld that your workplace is blocking, but I don't know for sure of course.

unethical_ban• 7 years ago

I wish our infosec department would just trust the vendor reputation service and realize that gTLDs have been around for years now.

haspoken• 7 years ago

https://archive.is/http://sam.zeloof.xyz/category/semiconduc...

spectramax• 7 years ago

I was at Semicon Japan last year in December and I learn about the coolest semiconductor company (non profit research organization) ever - MinimalFab [1]. There isn't much information their website but this [2] video explains what MinimalFab is about. Essentially, it is a cleanroom-free, modularized fab where each process step in a fab is like a little ATM machine. Miniaturization of complex fab processes is mind blowing and everything is contained inside the machine including a Class 100 environment. Load a tiny quarter sized wafer in a cassette to process and move material from one machine to another. This kind of a fab setup would be incredibly useful to R&D fabs in universities and small scale fabrication for military, space, defense and perhaps even hobby use.

[1] https://www.minimalfab.com/en/ [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsOVbmfYxoM

dbcurtis• 7 years ago

That looks very exciting for some research environments, and for some prototyping. But a 12mm wafer is certainly going to limit what you can do, and they make no mention of feature size. In the end, what you can accomplish is determined by the process and how easily your design tools let you target the process. I am sure there is a lot of academic research that could benefit greatly. As to prototyping, I have concerns that it would be difficult to do a part on this process and transfer it to a different process for scale.

LargoLasskhyfv6• 7 years ago

That is very interesting! I watched that and found some more information after searching a little:

[1] https://www.yokogawa.com/yjp/solutions/solutions/minimal-fab...

It seems like this fab is a demonstrator, and is planned for sale. This makes me wonder if/when this will be available for maker style setups, at which process nodes & price per piece. Would be nice to be able to design some fully custom ip, have it tested, bonded and packaged, and optionally soldered, like you can have it with pcb services today.

One can dream, yes?

LargoLasskhyfv6• 7 years ago

Found another, more technical video, but couldn't recognize anything about process node/feature size. Anyways, here it is:

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hViCDab0E2A

ChuckMcM3• 7 years ago

That is exceptionally cool. They have taken existing best practices in semiconductor fabs and migrated them to an interesting place.

What is missing of course is what their feature sizes are and the part at the end where you cut the die and package it. It is those things that would define the set of things you could put on a single chip.

LargoLasskhyfv6• 7 years ago

Have a look at

[1] https://bits-chips.nl/artikel/small-series-of-chips-profitab...

under "E-Beam" for 0.25-micron node and roadmap.

rramadass• 7 years ago

Damn!

Thanks for this info.

amelius2• 7 years ago

Small production sizes are cool, but you still have to factor in yield of course.

Avery3R• 7 years ago

Website seems like it got the HN hug of death, archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20190809200012/http://sam.zeloof...

KenoFischer2• 7 years ago

I love this! Nanofabrication was one of my favorite classes and even with fancy equipment and worked out ahead of time instructions making a transistor took a huge amount of time and a good number of missteps. Can't imagine the amount of work required to do it all from scratch. Though I also think the safety lectures scared me sufficiently that I wouldn't want to touch HF acid ever again.

adamnemecek2• 7 years ago

What class is this?

KenoFischer2• 7 years ago

The course number was ES277, though the professor left and it doesn't look like it's currently being offered under that course number. Not sure if there's a replacement class or the department decided to quietly shut it down. Wouldn't be surprised if it was the latter. The class was rumored to be the second most expensive one offered by the university, after the one where you got to grow organs in a petri dish. I also tried taking that one, but apparently not being a biologist was disqualifying.

sokoloff• 7 years ago

Chris G interviewed Sam on the AmpHour Podcast #390; it was a good listen if you're interested in the topic.

https://theamphour.com/390-an-interview-with-sam-zeloof/

bcaa7f3a8bbc2• 7 years ago

And remember that the author Sam Zeloof was still studying in highschool when he completed this project.

DC-3• 7 years ago

He must have tolerant parents to allow experiments involving baths of HF and Piranha solution in their garage!

Seriously impressive though.

amelius2• 7 years ago

Or ignorant parents.

phkahler• 7 years ago

Is this kind of thing possible with less toxic chemistry?

esmi2• 7 years ago

No. When this article was previously posted there was an interesting thread on this topic.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16955549

Edit: I should mention that one can make a rectifier using household chemicals. Caution is still warranted of course.

http://www.hpfriedrichs.com/radioroom/cu-diode/rr-cu-diode.h...

namibj• 7 years ago

Not really. SiO2 is pretty inert, it's used as containment for most chemicals.

faissaloo3• 7 years ago

There are some ideas floating about but nothing concrete and reliable just yet.

syntaxing• 7 years ago

It depends on what you mean. Typically you cannot get away from HF for the etching process but you definitely can replace the whole process with plasma etch/dep. Full plasma etch/dep fab line isn't really scalable and doesn't create optimal uniformity or layer thickness. But for a project like this, it's definitely doable minus the cost prohibitive equipment.

cr0sh• 7 years ago

This is all very interesting and amazing, and kudos to the person for being able to do this - but I think we need to take a step back here a bit; this doesn't look like something that "just anybody" could replicate.

For one, this person seems to have some very advanced knowledge of some very advanced processes - I am not even sure where one would gain such knowledge from easily, though they do seem to have access to MIT in some manner. Regardless of how it was gained, this knowledge of some of the very basic processes and advanced tools involved would be foundational to this entire enterprise (and it seems this person went to the trouble to build up to this - but what foundation of knowledge they had prior to that point seem unknown?).

Secondly, they appear to have something more than just a simple "2-car garage" - unless the camera perspective is really skewed. The building they are in looks to be like a large steel fabricated unit, 40'x 20'x 12' - my numbers might be off but it doesn't look like a simple garage or workshop, but rather something you'd either pay a lot of money for to have erected on your (likely sizeable) property, or its space at a leased business/industrial complex.

Third, from what I gather, much of their equipment is resold industrial surplus off ebay (and probably other places); I know of one company, local to me (Phoenix), which sells online via ebay such equipment (Equipment Exchange) - assuming they are still in business. While what they sold was inexpensive - even at "pennies on the dollar" you are not talking small amounts of money, because some of that equipment is anything but inexpensive brand-new. I'm sure there are other vendors as well for this kind of equipment, and if you know what you want and need, you can probably strike some good bargains, but I still can't imagine this being budget friendly for most people.

This all adds up to what seems to be a "hobby" that would require both extreme dedication (time, energy, and knowledge acquisition) and considerable monetary resources to implement. Not something that just anyone can do - it's not a "maker friendly" endeavour. Maybe it can be miniaturized and simplified now that it's been "proven" to be possible, which is a great thing in itself (after all, it was more or less done with 3D printing and home CNC). Though I am not sure how far that can be taken - then again, people have fabricated some quite complex stuff before...

So all in all - this is amazing work, and does show the possibility. But temper that with the reality of the situation: This person has some very specialized knowledge gathered over who knows what kind of timeframe, and the resources to purchase and bring together all of these tools and parts to do this kind of thing. Even with all that, they still had and have a bunch of trial and error. I'm amazed it could be done at all in a nominally "DIY" manner. Congratulations to that!

lallysingh• 7 years ago

Looks roughly the cost and time and space of a hobby car, right? Like a hot rod?

furi2• 7 years ago

You're overhyping the knowledge a bit. It can't have been gathered over that great a span of time because he was only in his late teens when he did this. Also I've been able to work out most of it myself over a period of about a year using the book "Introduction to Semiconductor Manufacturing Technology" by Hong Xiao for general process layout (what steps are necessary, in what order, with what chemicals, etc.) and a scattering of papers, chemical datasheets and ResearchGate discussions for the specific parameters to use.

If anybody would like to get into this kind of thing I highly recommend that book, it's very approachable for somebody coming from computing without a particular semiconductor/chemistry/material science background.

ChickeNES• 7 years ago

Do you have a list of the papers you found helpful in addition to the book?

otakucode2• 7 years ago

but what foundation of knowledge they had prior to that point seem unknown?

Well, he hadn't graduated high school yet. Your points about the expense are probably sound, unless he was doing some serious wheeling and dealing (which is certainly possible, some high schoolers flip sports cars and make money that way, etc) but a large part of that would be an artifact of being one of the first to attempt this sort of thing at this scale. Modern manufacturing often doesn't scale down very well. Such steps are necessary, however, to improve the level of capability of the hobby community in general. The next project will probably be done cheaper, learning where there is flex in the process, etc.

mindcrime• 7 years ago

While your points are valid (or mostly so), I think you're being a little bit overly dismissive. OK, maybe not "just anybody" could do this, but about what can we say that "just anybody" can do it?

OTOH, considering a hypothetical group of dedicated enthusiasts who are willing to pool resources / funds / knowledge /etc. and work on something like this collectively, I'd just about be willing to wager than any moderately urban area in a "1st world" country has the raw potential to have a "garage chip fab" show up. Especially areas near one or more research universities and with a heavy tech presence (and therefore lots of technically adept people in the local population).

Of course not everybody will bother, because arguably there isn't much point other than education and a sense of self-satisfaction, given this bit: "Update 7/8/19: FET gate length (feature size) reduced to <5µm, bringing this project to be state-of-the-art in about 1975".

Anyway, this seems like a pretty cool demo at worst, and "hats off" to Sam for pulling it off!

CriticalCathed• 7 years ago

He was in high school when he did this in his parents garage.

bogwog• 7 years ago

in his parents garage.

and their bank account...

which is not to diminish his accomplishments. It's impressive as hell what he has managed to do, but it's kinda hard to overlook that detail.

A project like this would be impossible for the vast majority of the population of the richest country in the world, even for adults with a college degree. Besides the cost, the time investment required for a hobby like this is huge, and what you produce would be effectively worthless in 2019 (financially, at least).

hammock• 7 years ago

Please don't dump your solvent down the drain like every Silicon Valley fab did back in the day, poisoning the entire region for decades to come. Just look up how many EPA Superfund sites are in the South Bay due to trichloroethylene, TCE contamination. Dispose of it properly and safely.

SkyPuncher• 7 years ago

Dispose of it properly and safely.

I see a lot of people say this, but I rarely see any actionable advice.

How does your average residential person find and dispose of chemicals like this? Seems like most people end up pouring them down the drain simply because they don't know how to actually find a better means of disposing them.

henryfjordan• 7 years ago

A person doesn't get a pass on things like this because other people didn't spoon-feed them the info. Read the law, call the EPA, google it.

Ultimately if you want to use chemicals that have the potential to poison our shared environment you need to be willing to do the legwork to be confident that you are doing things responsibly.

__jal• 7 years ago

I don't know, but if I were doing this, I'd find out. Call your residential waste management company and ask them who handles commercial hazmat in the area, if you can't think of any other way to start.

If you're planning out your own home fab, you're researching a bunch of other things and giving serious thought to a lot of nontrivial problems. Choosing to ignore waste disposal is irresponsible, and you deserve any legal hassle you run in to.

esmi2• 7 years ago

Just google hazardous waste disposal and give it your location. My experience is in the US, and here many counties have something like this:

https://www.sccgov.org/sites/rwr/hhw/Pages/What-is-Household...

opencl• 7 years ago

Your average residential person doesn't have a homemade semiconductor manufacturing facility in their garage either, I'm sure getting into contact with local waste disposal agencies is a far easier task than building all this stuff.

jefftk• 7 years ago

If you're in MA the link is: https://www.mass.gov/info-details/safely-manage-hazardous-ho...

Other states probably have similar things?

Very much worth researching before you get into a hobby where you start accumulating hazmats!

inferiorhuman• 7 years ago

I rarely see any actionable advice.

How's this? If you don't know how to safely dispose of the toxic chemicals used in chip fabrication don't fabricate chips at home.

bsder• 7 years ago

I see a lot of people say this, but I rarely see any actionable advice.

If you have industrial quantities of chemicals (more than a gallon or so), you need to call the relevant entities.

If you are lucky enough to have a hazardous waste disposal locally, obviously use that.

If you have stuff that doesn't break down well in water (cooking grease, for example), pouring that down the drain is always a recipe for trouble. You're simply going to clog your pipes. You need to dispose of that properly. There is a reason why restaurants have grease traps. Normally, residential quantities of this stuff can be placed in normal trash.

You can try to dispose of motor oil at gas stations, service stations, etc., but a lot of places won't take oil from end consumers anymore as it may be contaminated and their recycler will charge them. I actually had a very difficult time disposing of motor oil about 15 years ago. (I don't do my own oil changes anymore for this reason). I got told by the local enforcement "At the end of the day, dishwashing liquid and pour it down the toilet and the sewage treatment plant will chew it up the rest of the way." Obviously if everybody does this, it's a problem, but if it's really a one-off, it's okay-ish.

If, however, your stuff is soluble in water and you have a relatively small amount of it and your waste goes to a sewage treatment plant, pouring it down the drain while diluting it with a lot of water is often your only choice (be careful--solvents and acids can produce fairly noxious vapors even when diluted heavily) Quite often industrial disposal sites simply will not take small quantities of waste from individuals as there are liability issues involved.

Now, you may not like what even a dilute solution does to your plumbing, but that's a different issue. If your sewage doesn't go to a sewage treatment plant, but instead goes to something like a septic system, then you probably don't want to do this.

DO NOT POUR STUFF DOWN STORM DRAINS. Those normally do NOT go to sewage treatment plants (there are exceptions--but they are rare) and, as such, are a really quick way to contaminate the environment.

6nf• 7 years ago

Your local rubbish service will point you in the right direction.

fluffything• 7 years ago

How does your average residential person find and dispose of chemicals like this?

How do you dispose electronics? Batteries? Oil? Tires? Cars? Furniture? construction materials? ...

You go to the webpage of your local garbage disposal authority, and read their FAQ, which typically contains where all their disposal centers are, their addresses, opening hours, etc. and what can you dispose on each one.

If what you want to dispose is not listed anywhere, you call them and ask them.

In my country if you want to buy these types of chemicals, you need to ask a company for a price, and the company will ask: who are you? what do you want them for? what's your process for the chemicals? Etc. If you fail to answer any of the questions, they are obligated to report that a "sketchy" party tried to buy some chemicals from them. That might get you a visit from the police, asking even more questions.

That's balancing your freedom to do whatever you want with chemicals with my freedom to enjoy a world that hasn't been polluted by idiots that didn't know what they were doing.

basementcat• 7 years ago

Please don't dump your solvent down the drain like every Silicon Valley fab did back in the day, poisoning the entire region for decades to come.

Please develop a workable waste disposal strategy BEFORE thinking about cool disruptive home brew nanofab MEMS/circuit hacks.

hinkley3• 7 years ago

There are a few things I don't want disrupted, and my endocrine system is one of them.

m0zg2• 7 years ago

Speaking of which, does anyone know where (in the US) I can safely dispose of ferric chloride, sulfuric acid, and hydrochloric acid? I used to etch my own boards years ago. And ever since then the spent stuff just sits in glass jars in a double plastic box in my garage. I don't etch anything anymore, and it's taking up space.

segfaultbuserr3• 7 years ago

safely dispose of ferric chloride, sulfuric acid, and hydrochloric acid

The first step is easy: neutralize them with any base, such as baking soda. You don't need precision, just add a lot of it, and make sure the pH is close to 7 (or beyond, baking soda is not corrosive) at the end. After this step, the solution is no longer acidic or corrosive and much safer to handle.

Unfortunately, the next step is tricky. The solution is safe, but it still contains a lot of Cu+ ions, which is a heavy metal pollutant and poisonous.

On the other hand, if your sulfuric or hydrochloric acid is unused for etching anything (clean without those nasty ions), you are good to go, just dump them in the sink after you've neutralized them (test with pH paper) it's perfectly safe.

faissaloo3• 7 years ago

There are usually reactions you can do to make them safe to dispose of in a regular manner, you should be able to find them with a decent amount of googling.

asynchronous13• 7 years ago

pretty easy really. Add acid to water, then add baking soda to the acidic water until it's neutralized. (no more bubbling), then pour it down the sink with more water. Use appropriate precautions, gloves, goggles, well-ventilated area, etc. Once the acid is neutral, it won't hurt anything in the pipes.

wrycoder• 7 years ago

I ran a small fab on the peninsula back in the day, and we certainly didn't dump any trico down the drain. We did put a small amount of propanol (used to switch from a water rinse to trico drying) down, but that's pretty harmless. The trico was taken away by a reprocessing company. It was still essentially pure - some of it contained a bit of dissolved photoresist or beeswax.

I read through the OP - he's making good choices and doing it much as we did fifty years ago. I would have killed to get that maskless photolith setup, though.

For a small fab (three furnace tubes, two fume hoods), the main issue is acids from photoresist ashing, wafer cleaning, tube etch cleaning, and metal etching. These are easily neutralized with a vat of marble chips built into the plumbing under the fume hoods.

If you are doing this, avoid epitaxy, which involves arsine and phosphine. I would say never attempt those! You can buy epi wafers. Either use spin-on dopants like he did, or use oxidized boron nitride wafers and small amounts of phosphorous oxychloride like we did.

The effluent from a plating facility or a dry cleaning establishment would be far more concerning.

Our furnace and photolith operation fit in a 20 x 30 ft room. It was one of the leading operations of its kind in the world at that time.

bobcostas55• 7 years ago

Once space exploration really gets going, mobile chip fabrication is gonna be a pretty big deal.

ngold• 7 years ago

Good point. The space race would have massive benefits for us on earth in nanofabrication. Just one more bonus point for space.

ColanR• 7 years ago

How does microgravity help in nanofabrication?

mLuby• 7 years ago

NASA had a 1980 study° of space fabrication systems where they referred to small, light, hard-to-manufacture parts as "vitamins." These vitamins (ICs certainly, perhaps special sensors or high-quality optics) would likely be the last part of the manufacturing system to be moved from Earth into space due to the complexity (=mass/volume) of fabrication and relative ease of transportation.

°http://www.islandone.org/MMSG/aasm/AASMIndex.html

lkschubert82• 7 years ago

This terminology also got carried on top the self replicating 3d printer world. Any part that cant be produced by a printer is a vitamin.

otakucode2• 7 years ago

What happens to old fab tech? A few years ago I tried searching around online to see if there was anywhere you could buy decommissioned machinery for fabricating NAND flash, but I couldn't find anything or any sign that such things ever really come up for sale. Has anyone worked in a fab or otherwise have some idea of what happens to the stuff that worked at larger process sizes?

deepnotderp• 7 years ago

A lot of the stuff, e.g. 193i immersion litho, gets reused the by the fabs, other stuff gets used for older nodes, which are often still thriving, e.g. 180nm is popping for analog.

makomk• 7 years ago

Also, some of it just gets trashed. I remember seeing photos of a bunch of equipment just sitting away rusting slowly in a parking lot somewhere in (I think) the UK. Obsolete node and wafer size, no real market for it.

CodiePetersen• 7 years ago

Wow, very cool. I've been wanting to get into hardware for a while now. Well just as long as I have been in programming to be honest which is about 10 years or so now. So as the useful things I can learn start petering off in programming for me I think I will be diving into hardware as a hobby. I have been doing some robot stuff with me niece, but not as much as I would like. But this article and spectramax's comment I think has kind of warmed that little ember of curiosity in it again.

Thanks.

Taniwha• 7 years ago

I bet there's some overlap with thee the $300 UV resin printer technology that has just become available - they print at 50micron - essentially they're just a TFT cell phone screen with a UV backlight.

parsimo20102• 7 years ago

This is really cool. Jeri Ellsworth made some videos several years ago about homemade silicon transistors, but it was impractical due to the low precision and large size. Getting down to 5 um is a few orders of magnitude worse than a top end chip foundry today, but it's at least useful and you can fit all of the necessary equipment into a spare bedroom.

droithomme3• 7 years ago

Holy cow this is exceptionally impressive and amazing.

koskaj• 7 years ago

This guy makes me think of Kvothe in the Arcanum building sympathy lamps.

samrosea• 7 years ago

I knew this guy's brother lol.

weinzierl• 7 years ago

I find article about DIY chips super exciting. Given how important and ubiquitous chips are I think every university and maybe even schools should have a mini fab to teach the public how sand turns into a computer.

I was lucky to have this at my university. We had a professor who build a complete mini fab, mostly from industry donations of discarded equipment. Our semester built a complete and functioning surface acoustic wave (SAW) filter from the wafer to the bonded and housed chip. One of the best practical courses I've ever had.

dang• 7 years ago

Thread from 2018: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16955549

rwmj• 7 years ago

This is a BBC documentary about Intel's fab from the late 1970s. It's similar technology level. Also probably the first and last time that Intel allowed cameras into one of their fabs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HW5Fvk8FNOQ

BBC Horizon: 1977-1978 Now The Chips Are Down

craigr1972• 7 years ago

Another story that highlights why I absolutely love HN..

eternauta3k• 7 years ago

Now that MOSIS won't work with universities outside the US, this might be an interesting way to have very simple student designs fabricated.

bobjordan• 7 years ago

Super impressive and don't miss his youtube. The first video I saw he's setting up his circa 1996 scanning electron microscope, which he bought from eBay. I thought my optical CMM was cool but now I'm envious. Time to do some dumpster diving in Shenzhen. https://youtu.be/RJXio_jpc_Y

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