Posted on 01/25/2022 8:12:39 AM PST by DUMBGRUNT
The biggest hurdle is an electron microscope for examining the features of his transistors. A good friend found a broken one and with $1000, a fair amount of know how and a lot of time they were able to repair it to working condition. As for the photolithography device? The light from a conference room projector is beamed through a microscope to trigger the light sensitive coating on his wafers
Zeloof’s chip was his second. He made the first, much smaller one as a high school senior in 2018; he started making individual transistors a year before that. His chips lag Intel’s by technological eons, but Zeloof argues only half-jokingly that he’s making faster progress than the semiconductor industry did in its early days. -------------------- Zeloof started at Carnegie Mellon University, hacking on pieces of garage fab equipment in his dorm room while studying electrical engineering. Although he says he followed safety protocols, the university took exception to the x-ray machine in his dorm room
While Intel has a lot more money, it also has a long history of difficulties living up to the promises they make to the American government, meanwhile Sam Zeloof has already built his fab and his process technology is shrinking at a much higher pace than Intel’s.
(Excerpt) Read more at pcper.com ...
Scratch first ‘years’.
Bill Gates knows more about what I want to type
than I do.
—”Right!”
HITACHI S-570 SCANNING ELECTRON MICROSCOPE
“UNABLE TO TEST. MAKE AN OFFER”
http://www.ebay.com/itm/265402739575
Same mother, different brother?
Jeol JSM-5200 Laboratory/Industrial SEM Scanning Electron Microscope System
http://www.ebay.com/itm/114254556591
This young man’s products are unlikely to be competitive with the offerings of Intel, Qualcomm, TI, AMD, Nvidia et al. anytime soon, but to do what he’s doing at home is quite impressive nonetheless. It doesn’t take a great leap of imagination to predict that this fellow will eventually have success in whatever fields he chooses.
I remember reading an anecdote once from a guy who went to college at Michigan with Google founder Larry Page. Guy said Larry was an uber-nerd with a home-built computer in a case he had fashioned out of Legos. Now, was Page’s Lego computer an invention of any significance on its own? Probably not, but the do-it-yourself, obessive-compulsive mentality behind it was indicative of qualities that would eventually blossom in other ways.
Yep...just a few zeros lol.
I mean - good for this guy, I’m sure he has a good future...it’s just how some of these stories are projected make me chuckle.
Since I have retired I find that I enjoy working in my manual machine shop. I have started making an Enigma Machine, for no reason in particular. (A lot of parts)
Do you have any hobbies? You are obviously a deep techie, so your self entertainment is likely to be interesting. (I'm just curious.)
As for the young man featured in the article, it seems he should be able to land a great job with any of the chip makers.
“...hacking on pieces of garage fab equipment in his dorm room..”
“..Sam Zeloof has already built his fab and his process technology..”
What does “fab” mean as it is used here?
Or should that be “lab”?
—”Now THAT’s impressive!”
YES!
I like the classic album collection.
Fab = Fabrication
wow. great. biggest sci/tech post i’ve seen on FR in years.
Don’t forget the genius teenager that Obama touted for building an alarm-clock out of transistor radio, or some such!
“Why spend a hundred grand to make an obsolete product!”
Multiple reasons:
1. Because it’s a first step to obtain the expertise to build more sophisticated chips.
2. Because you don’t run afoul of existing patents.
3. Because you can build secure chips that don’t have backdoors built into them so the FBI, CIA, and NSA can break into them whenever they want.
“Do you have any hobbies? You are obviously a deep techie, so your self entertainment is likely to be interesting. (I’m just curious.)”
Made my first crystal radio 68 years ago. Had to learn everything about radio and TV.
Same with computers in the 80’s.
Now mostly enjoying the good life.
But it will be of no use to anyone.
“it’s just how some of these stories are projected make me chuckle.”
Like the JSM-6300 for $1000.
Fun project and kudos to this guy for doing it.
Sadly, it is no more -- the high voltage power supply shorted out and I was unable to repair it or get it serviced.
I had a much older 545 tube scope and plugins but that, too, eventually quit and refused to come back up.
I miss the days when I was puttering in my shop every week with those old friends... sigh.
I like his set up.
My work area is 500 sqft. I like to build Ham Radios in my spare time. Getting ready to remodel the room.
In this case, fab is short for fabrication.
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