[alted]

A disappointing fact of chip fabrication is the minimum bar is high and expensive.

In other fields, a hobbyist can do wood/metalworking or learn programming or build a robot kit. There's an onramp for people to start learning the skills, which makes a huge ecosystem of gradually improving talent.

But in microfabrication, even though it's the only way to make chips, screens, cameras, inkjets, and LEDs, the minimum equipment cost is millions of dollars. Even worse, it takes even professionals months to fine-tune a manufacturing process to make a new thing.

As a result, R&D is much lower than it could be, and most fabrication is limited to circumstances with a high chance of mass production payoff.

[chx]

Well...

You can learn a lot by programming FPGAs.

In theory, while I think you could build an SSI manufacturing device at home if you really wanted to -- just how many people build an internal combustion engine themselves to learn about it?

[hobs]

Hopefully the people who post on hacker news. I just bought a book on steam boiler operation and another on building and maintaining internal combustion engines; so, me!

[defrost]

> just how many people build an internal combustion engine themselves to learn about it?

At least 30 kids in Transport class when I went to high school, more if you count the kids in years before and after.

Not a full build, mind you - only some parts were cast, but we did do full strip downs and rebuilds of six cylinder ICE's as well as having a cut-away display engine in the shop.

My son did better (IMHO), he got to build an entire light aircraft over three years as part of aviation in a public high school in Western Australia. He missed out on the ICE building though.

[ChuckMcM]

This, but its really the logic function versus actual device fabrication. I would love to see a home device that would let you build you own transistors and perhaps a very small number of passives.

Consider a system that had 6mm diameter "blanks" and a tool that would let you put down an epitaxial layer, lay down, expose, and then etch a resist layer, etc. At those small scales, one could hope the chemistry would be manageable.

[truculent]

Not if you’re Sam Zeloof: https://www.wired.com/story/22-year-old-builds-chips-parents...

(But yes, to your point, most people are not)

[mdekkers]

> Even worse, it takes even professionals months to fine-tune a manufacturing process to make a new thing.

Months for simple things. Depending on technologies and requirements, the fine-tuning (increase yield and throughput) can take years.

[rpmisms]

I think home manufacturing of chips is the next mini industrial revolution. 3D printing was the last one, I'm looking forward to seeing where we go next.

[BlueTemplar]

The basic process of chemical etching that the article insists is at the core of so much of our exponential progress is (still?) being taught (including practical work) in middle school though.

[floxy]

Never used it, but you might find https://tinytapeout.com/ interesting.