Sam Zeloof made a homemade computer chip with 1,200 transistors and 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611
In August, chipmaker Intel revealed new details about its plan to build a $100 billion factory in the US, where 10,000 workers will make a new generation of powerful processors studded with billions of transistors. Sam Zeloof announced his own milestone in the same month. It was achieved alone in his family's New Jersey garage, 30 miles from where the first transistor was made.
Zeloof produced a chip with 1,200 transistors from salvaged and homemade equipment. He sliced up wafers ofSilicon,patterned them with tiny designs using ultraviolet light, and dunked them in acid by hand, documenting the process on his website. He says that he can do it even if it takes him longer.
Zeloof had his first chip. He started making individual transistors a year before he made the first, much smaller one. Zeloof argues that he is making faster progress than the Semiconductor industry did in its early days, even though his chips lag by technological eons. His second chip has 200 times as many transistors as his first, a growth rate that surpasses Moore's law, which says the number of transistors on a chip doubles roughly every two years.
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Zeloof wants to match the scale of Intel's 4004 chip from 1971, which had 2,300 transistors and was used in calculators and other business machines. He started work on an interim circuit design in December.
Zeloof says making it easier to tinker with chips would foster new ideas in tech.
Outside Zeloof's garage there is a global shortage of products due to the Pandemic. Policymakers are interested in rebuilding the US capacity to produce its own computer chips after decades of offshoring.
Zeloof says his hobby has convinced him that society would benefit from chipmaking being more accessible to inventors without multimillion-dollar budgets. Zeloof says that the high barrier to entry will make you risk-averse.
Zeloof started making his own chips as a high school junior. He was impressed by a series of videos on the internet in which inventor andentrepreneur Jeri Ellsworth demonstrated how to make her own transistors using templates cut from vinyl decals and a bottle of rust stain remover. Zeloof set out to duplicate the work of Ellsworth and take his next step: going from lone transistors to integrated circuits. The CEO of an augmented-reality startup says that he took it a quantum leap further. There is tremendous value in reminding the world that these industries that seem so far out of reach started somewhere more modest, and you can do that yourself.
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The world's most difficult and precise manufacturing process is computer chip fabrication. Zeloof was told by industry experts that it was impossible when he started writing about his goals. He says he did it because he thought it would be funny. I wanted to make a statement that we should be careful when we hear that something is impossible.
Zeloof's family was supportive but cautious. The father asked the engineer if he could give him some safety advice. My first thought was that you couldn't do it. Mark Rothman, who has worked in chip engineering for 40 years and is now at a company making technology for OLED screens, says this is a garage. As he saw Zeloof's progress, he softened his initial reaction. I would never have thought people could do that.
Zeloof has a project that involves history and engineering. Modern chip fabrication takes place in facilities with high-tech heating and cooling systems that remove dust from machinery. Zeloof couldn't match those techniques, so he read patents and textbooks from the 1960s and 1970s, when engineers at companies like Fairchild Semiconductor made chips at ordinary workbenches. Zeloof says that the methods they describe use X-Acto blades and tape, not the $10 million machine the size of a room.
Zeloof had to have vintage equipment in his lab. He found a ready supply of bargain chip gear from the 1970s and ’80s on eBay and other auction sites. Old machines are easier to fix than modern lab machinery. Zeloof found a broken electron microscope that cost $250,000 in the early '90s and repaired it for $1,000. He uses it to look for flaws in his chips and butterfly wings.
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