There's another video on YouTube by the same guy detailing how he built his backyard clean room shed. I was kind of surprised at how easy it was - it's definitely a construction project that requires some specialized knowledge, but the fact that it's tractable at all for one person with a shed is pretty amazing to me.
Is it? Looks like this video is "locked" on Patreon requiring "this post and more exclusive work. Join for $10/month" yet got, as of now, 329 611 views ... so are they just making $3M/month or is it not really working?
What are you talking about? The video is free on YouTube. Patreon is just another way of supporting the channel beyond the usual ad-sense, sponsors, etc.
No one is expecting them to make a fortune over night, but it at least shows there is space for new people. This video was actually push into my feed by youtube which is rare for new creators. So they clearly are doing pretty well in the grand scheme of things.
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.
why even allow the cognitive overhead to worry about such a thing? it's not for you to decide anyway - let the users decide using the voting system that's built to task
Backyard semiconductor production is pretty similar to backyard barbecue. Lots of heating, smoking (diffusion), injecting (ion implant), and layering..
2028. How to forage for edible plants and identify safe water sources
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If they put a pricing page, I think there would be someone who would buy it, especially nowadays when with embedded llms there is a huge hunger for RAM (as well as CPU). :))
So, I get that we charge the capacitor up, and that it leaks so we must recharge it periodically. I don't get two things:
1. How is the value read? Is it reading the leak?
2. How is recharging done? I guess the leak itself (assuming my guess in 1. holds) could provide charge for some logic that checks "if has charge then recharge else nop".
I still don't really get transistors :P, but this was cool.
In the "real" DRAM chip, there is a large array of very tiny capacitors, with the switches which allow to connect one row of the array at a time to the readout column wires.
The capacitance of the wires themselves is typically an order of magnitude greater than that of the storage capacitors. So when the memory is read, the wires are first precharged to some standard voltage. Then the desired row of storage capacitors is connected to the wires, and the charges from the storage capacitors spread onto the wires, changing their voltages very slightly. These voltage deviations from the standard value are amplified by the "sense amplifiers". The amplifiers are sort of like flip-flops. Once they start in a state which "tilts" slightly to "zero" or slightly to "one", they go all the way to the full magnitude zeros and ones. This not only amplifies the signal, but also automatically brings the voltages on the wires and the still connected to them capacitors to the full magnitude, thus "refreshing" the data. The row is disconnected, and the next read cycle can start for some other row.
In the video, an array of 4x5 capacitors and the associated with them switches was fabricated. The capacitors in the video are several hundred times larger (12400 fF) than typical capacitors in a 64 Kbit DRAM (about 50 fF). I assume this is done so that in the later episodes the author could implement the readout electronics outside of the chip.
- any two conductive plates close together with an insulator between make a capacitor (1)
- when a capacitor is charged, the energy goes into the electric FIELD
- that's the FIELD of the field effect transistor
- if the field is strong enough, that causes conduction between source and drain (along the "channel")
- the insulator is nanometers thick, so current leaks across it; at that scale, you can detect individual electrons quantum teleporting straight through it.
(1) technically like gravity there is a capacitance between any two objects in the universe, but it's only significant when you have relatively wide and close conductors
Technologies that were considered "high-tech" 20-30 years ago are now accessible to regular people. Making DRAM. I remember a video recently of a guy making his own floppy disks.
Next I expect people to manufacture integrated circuits that have been discontinued. Like the Z80
Considering how AI companies and older hardware manufacturing
companies are driving up the RAM prices - thus, milking all of
us ultimately - I think 3D printing needs to become the new
default. And affordable too, eventually (it already is, for
cheap things, e. g. plastics or PLA based printing, this is
often much cheaper than ordering this from a company, but I
mean with regards to computer systems too. Naturally right now
we are far away from the nanoscale here, but I see this simply
as a situation that will change eventually, given enough time).
Those AI companies and hardware manufacturers lost all right to
further dictate and increase prices. Capitalism does not work
as de-facto blackmail monopoly - or should not. If a state fails
to protect the people, such as in the USA right now under the
orange king, then the people need to insist on change. ALL
steps against this tyranny from a few superrich needs to end.
Right now the legislation is going in the way how lobbyists
want this, e. g. trying to make 3D printing illegal, but I
think technology will obsolete such illegal laws eventually.
Tyranny will eventually fail.
It appears that the creator built a setup inspired by HackerFab, which is a collection of open source tools and resources for chip manufacturing. It's a fantastic project, and I recommend people check it out:
61 comments
[ 668 ms ] story [ 2818 ms ] thread... and sufficiently interesting to more than a very small group of persons.
No one is expecting them to make a fortune over night, but it at least shows there is space for new people. This video was actually push into my feed by youtube which is rare for new creators. So they clearly are doing pretty well in the grand scheme of things.
[1] https://www.patreon.com/cw/DrSemiconductor
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.
why even allow the cognitive overhead to worry about such a thing? it's not for you to decide anyway - let the users decide using the voting system that's built to task
RAM at home:
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3173574.3174105
https://downloadmoreram.com/
1. How is the value read? Is it reading the leak?
2. How is recharging done? I guess the leak itself (assuming my guess in 1. holds) could provide charge for some logic that checks "if has charge then recharge else nop".
I still don't really get transistors :P, but this was cool.
The capacitance of the wires themselves is typically an order of magnitude greater than that of the storage capacitors. So when the memory is read, the wires are first precharged to some standard voltage. Then the desired row of storage capacitors is connected to the wires, and the charges from the storage capacitors spread onto the wires, changing their voltages very slightly. These voltage deviations from the standard value are amplified by the "sense amplifiers". The amplifiers are sort of like flip-flops. Once they start in a state which "tilts" slightly to "zero" or slightly to "one", they go all the way to the full magnitude zeros and ones. This not only amplifies the signal, but also automatically brings the voltages on the wires and the still connected to them capacitors to the full magnitude, thus "refreshing" the data. The row is disconnected, and the next read cycle can start for some other row.
In the video, an array of 4x5 capacitors and the associated with them switches was fabricated. The capacitors in the video are several hundred times larger (12400 fF) than typical capacitors in a 64 Kbit DRAM (about 50 fF). I assume this is done so that in the later episodes the author could implement the readout electronics outside of the chip.
The important bits here are:
- any two conductive plates close together with an insulator between make a capacitor (1)
- when a capacitor is charged, the energy goes into the electric FIELD
- that's the FIELD of the field effect transistor
- if the field is strong enough, that causes conduction between source and drain (along the "channel")
- the insulator is nanometers thick, so current leaks across it; at that scale, you can detect individual electrons quantum teleporting straight through it.
(1) technically like gravity there is a capacitance between any two objects in the universe, but it's only significant when you have relatively wide and close conductors
Those AI companies and hardware manufacturers lost all right to further dictate and increase prices. Capitalism does not work as de-facto blackmail monopoly - or should not. If a state fails to protect the people, such as in the USA right now under the orange king, then the people need to insist on change. ALL steps against this tyranny from a few superrich needs to end.
Right now the legislation is going in the way how lobbyists want this, e. g. trying to make 3D printing illegal, but I think technology will obsolete such illegal laws eventually. Tyranny will eventually fail.
https://docs.hackerfab.org/home