[HN Gopher] 22-year-old builds chips in his parents' garage
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22-year-old builds chips in his parents' garage
Author : Tomte
Score : 428 points
Date : 2022-01-23 04:46 UTC (18 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wired.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wired.com)
| futharkshill wrote:
| > Zeloof's family was supportive but also cautious. His father
| asked a semiconductor engineer he knew to offer some safety
| advice.
|
| As impressive and independent as this is, you have to wonder if
| any other gifted child could have done the same feat. The article
| seems to skip over this point, how many people know a
| "semiconductor engineer"?
| kragen wrote:
| There are ten thousand semiconductor engineers kicking around
| Silicon Valley and Albuquerque and Portland, and another
| hundred thousand in Shenzhen and Taipei and Seoul. So
| conservatively ten million people know a semiconductor
| engineer.
|
| Instead of focusing on the problem that only one person in a
| thousand knows a semiconductor engineer, we should figure out
| how to fix the much worse problem that out of the ten million
| people who do, only two people have made transistors in their
| basement, because that leak in the pipeline is apparently about
| five thousand times worse.
| Taniwha wrote:
| There are probably 1000s of logic designers kicking around
| Silicon Valley, probably not 10s of thousands. These days
| little semiconductor engineering is happening there, all the
| new fabs have been built elsewhere for decades now
| qayxc wrote:
| I'd also guess that not every gifted child has a (huge) spare
| garage to this and the money to buy the required gear.
| enginoor wrote:
| Zeloof's father runs a sheet metal fabrication shop that makes
| components for other manufacturers. They do excellent work,
| I've worked with them in the past. I'm guessing his father
| knows engineers in all sorts of industries.
| beowulfey wrote:
| Success is a combination of talent and circumstance. It's
| always been like that. It's also why giving opportunities to as
| many people as possible is so important.
| amelius wrote:
| This is what I think whenever I see an Olympic gold medal
| athlete. Would they even be on the winners podium if every
| other person out there attempted to reach that place?
|
| However, most winners have had to deal with losing, so they
| know they should be humble about it.
| DebtDeflation wrote:
| This is a story as old as time. When I was a kid growing up in
| the 1970s and 1980s and the school held science fairs, the kids
| whose parents were scientists and engineers had the coolest
| fair-winning projects while the rest of the kids made baking
| soda and vinegar volcanoes or lemon batteries.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| On the order of millions of kids have parents who know
| semiconductor engineers, and 1 of them ended up manufacturing
| chips in the garage.
|
| Please don't try to pick apart his accomplishments to make a
| point. He's still doing something that almost nobody with
| equivalent resources took the initiative to do.
| futharkshill wrote:
| Please see this
| https://www.indeed.com/career/semiconductor-
| engineer/salarie...
|
| I _promise_ you that there are not millions of kids. Your
| argument may still hold, but the was majority of children
| knows no one with this level of technical experience, let
| alone any programmers.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| As a sibling comment points out:
|
| > There are ten thousand semiconductor engineers kicking
| around Silicon Valley and Albuquerque and Portland, and
| another hundred thousand in Shenzhen and Taipei and
| Seoul. So conservatively ten million people know a
| semiconductor engineer.
|
| Nobody says they were best friend with one. You know a
| lot of people, and those engineers know a lot of people.
| I don't know why you're doubling down on this.
| astura wrote:
| I would have been ecstatic to even make a baking soda and
| vinegar volcano or lemon battery. The poor schools didn't
| have science fairs or anything like that.
|
| Uh, I was just reminded of something - when I was a kid (5th
| grade) I was gifted a book of science experiments for kids. I
| was only able to do maybe 1 experiment in the book because I
| didn't have access to any materials needed for the
| experiments. Those books should come with a warning or
| something, cause I remember being like "what kid has access
| to this stuff? Where do you even buy this stuff?"
|
| This isn't meant to be a "Woe is me" story, just trying to
| give some context.
| nobodyandproud wrote:
| My high school science teacher had high hopes for a science
| project and put me on the spot, after I mentioned something
| on a whim.
|
| The materials alone would've cost hundreds of dollars which
| was unfathomable to me in the early 90s.
|
| He didn't realize I came from a poor family; but I was too
| embarrassed to say anything.
|
| Anyway he was disappointed when I came up with a very
| mediocre (but super cheap) project; he mentioned later he
| would have paid for materials.
|
| Being poor is limiting in so many ways.
| stathibus wrote:
| I am quite confident that almost nobody could have blazed this
| trail, even with the same support network. The resilience,
| ingenuity and practical skill required is outrageous.
| dnautics wrote:
| Nah, I worked for a pair of 20-somethings that taped out a
| chip on a shuttle run in 6 months. Gpcpu asic, totally from
| scratch architecture.
| csense wrote:
| A 22-year-old builds 1970's-era chips with ~$1M capital in his
| garage.
|
| Intel builds 2020's-era chips with ~$20B capital in Ohio.
|
| Take the arithmetic mean of 1970 and 2020, and take the geometric
| mean of 1M and 20B. This very rough back-of-the-envelope
| calculation implies a small-ish company could build 1995-era
| chips with ~$141m capital.
|
| It seems to me that $141m is a quite reasonable "insurance
| policy" price major automakers would be willing to pay to ensure
| a stable supply of microcontrollers with 1995-era specs, given
| that they were recently in a situation of being unable to sell a
| bunch of $35,000 trucks because they couldn't find a batch of
| $3.50 microcontrollers.
|
| And this story repeats across a lot of different industries.
|
| Why aren't people throwing money at quickly building cheap chip
| plants to churn out low-spec chips?
| fisherjeff wrote:
| I mean, most MCUs are already 15+ years behind the state of the
| art process node and are still supply constrained. The issue, I
| think, is that once these market conditions are resolved, any
| new fabs will have ~zero value, and there is a non-zero chance
| that your shiny new-old fab comes online after the shortage is
| over. Not an easy sell to shareholders I suspect.
| ur-whale wrote:
| https://archive.ph/5CmuJ
| moring wrote:
| Does anyone have an idea whether there is a potential hobbyist
| market for home-grown chips of this size? I know that I would
| definitely be willing to spend around $100 for a much smaller
| chip, like quad-gates or slightly above (1200 transistors is way
| beyond what I thought is possible in a garage), more the larger
| the chip gets, and ultimately including getting involved in the
| design of the chip -- but then of course paying for all failures
| resulting from that.
|
| The upside, compared to things like Europractice or MOSIS being
| lower one-time costs and lower turnaround time, but higher per-
| chip costs, which matches very well with the "hobbyist" target.
|
| I long thought that this would be a nice niche market, but I
| never found any clue about whether these are realistic numbers or
| if anyone else would be interested in that.
| beckman466 wrote:
| > 1200 transistors is way beyond what I thought is possible in
| a garage
|
| what (prior) breakthroughs enabled Zeloof to achieve this?
| freemint wrote:
| All the research that was founded by tax dollars in the 70s
| before all the research was privatised (like nor more
| scientific publications how it was done etc).
| beckman466 wrote:
| absolutely believe this 100%. and even if isn't publicly
| funded, under capitalism wage laborers are shorted when
| they get paid a wage and their code becomes the private
| property of a capitalist. so yeah, i agree with your
| framing 100%.
|
| my question was more: what is the short laundry list of the
| exact developments/research that allowed Zeloof's garage-
| size/at-home chip-making?
| jabl wrote:
| I have a superficial understanding of photolithography,
| but I'd guess the stuff he's doing is described pretty
| well in undergraduate textbooks, and he got loads of
| equipment very cheap as it's obsolete for commercial or
| even academic use.
|
| Further, capital costs will rapidly start rising as well
| as the required knowhow as the feature size shrinks, so I
| think he's already quite close to the limit a one person
| hobby project can achieve.
|
| All this being said, this is an extremely impressive
| achievement. There's a long way from reading how stuff is
| supposed to work, to actually doing it your garage. My
| hat's off to Mr. Zeloof.
| amelius wrote:
| I could see a market if he built this into a small box, like
| the size of a photocopier.
| tagoregrtst wrote:
| I think the market is larger than we think (at least for a
| couple more gens mature chips) , but very fragmented.
|
| The analog desinger that wants a few hundred copies of a
| circuit using matched transistors.
|
| Ferrari willing to spend 10K a piece for a silly automotive
| chip
|
| I can see a market for very flexible small scale fabs
|
| The security paranoid who want a simple CPU they can trust at
| an optical scale they can verify (ie imageable to compare with
| what they ordered)
| tyingq wrote:
| I would guess the market would be pretty fragmented, with only
| so much demand for each chip. Right now, for example, some
| people buy FPGA based replacements for Commodore 64 "SID"
| chips, because the originals do fail. Some amount of purists
| might prefer a "real" chip. But how many? There are also
| simpler chips in this space that are in demand. Old Kaypros
| have a couple of custom gate array chips that are hard to
| replicate, for example.
|
| Or maybe the retro chip synthesizer crowd would buy a product,
| but again...how many?
| moring wrote:
| Bad wording on my part. I meant a market for ultra-low-volume
| fabbing of your own chip designs, not of fixed designs.
| phkahler wrote:
| Are PLDs still a thing? They can implement most anything a
| really low density chip like this could.
| tyingq wrote:
| Perhaps analog ICs would be a better market?
| digitallyfree wrote:
| That's was what came to mind for me as well. For digital
| you simply can't beat the cost of a mass-produced FPGA
| over having custom silicon fabricated (at small scale).
| Not to mention the additional design costs, EDA tool
| licensing, etc.
|
| Now for hardened applications, these large nodes have
| their uses. But that's a very niche case.
| moring wrote:
| PLDs evolved to FPGAs, which are far more powerful for
| that price. Homegrown chips would only be interesting for
| someone who regards ASIC design as an end, not a means,
| hence hobbyists.
| tyingq wrote:
| There's also some overlap with PAL and GAL chips, which
| you can still buy, and might still be acceptable to some
| hobbyists.
| foooobaba wrote:
| His YouTube videos are awesome and worth checking out!
|
| https://youtube.com/c/SamZeloof
| baybal2 wrote:
| Here is a bit of a backgrounder on what it takes to do any
| semblance of commercially usable CMOS chips.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5C1P83oO57k
| octocop wrote:
| Watched his Hackaday talk, mighty impressed. I think this comment
| section however is pretty sad, it seems that to do something
| impressive you cannot have supportive parents and money.
| ayyylmao wrote:
| Wronnay wrote:
| He could make a business out of that by replicating retro chips.
|
| Some chips are not easy to get and I bet vintage computing fans
| would pay enough so that a business in that area could be
| profitable.
| andi999 wrote:
| Copyright might be a problem.
| nobodyandproud wrote:
| Clean room reverse engineering is pretty standard and legal.
|
| It's how IBM PC clones were legitimate back in the 1980s; and
| how AMD managed to stay on the legal side when taking on
| Intel.
| kragen wrote:
| Chip design mask works only last 20 years, and they probably
| aren't copyrightable.
| tagoregrtst wrote:
| Thats an interesting comment.
|
| IANAL but
|
| The patent, how you'd typically protect the chips, have long
| expired.
|
| But the chip could have been protected as a work of art under
| copyright.
|
| However that would cover only a very similar layout of the
| transistors. Functionally identical chips wouldn't be covered
| even if they weren't re-created from scratch.
|
| Didnt Nintendo do something similar with the MOS6502?
| 0xcde4c3db wrote:
| Chip layouts are typically covered by a separate copyright-
| like regime with different rules (most notably a much
| shorter period of exclusivity) [1]. I believe the original
| NMOS 6502 and the derived Nintendo/Ricoh 2A03 both predate
| these laws, so Ricoh only had to worry about patent
| infringement.
|
| That being said, many chips also contain code (e.g.
| firmware, microcode) that is potentially eligible for
| copyright independently of the chip layout.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_circuit_layout
| _desi...
| krallja wrote:
| Nintendo partnered with Ricoh to put a Z80 in the NES, like
| Coleco and Sega, but Ricoh didn't have the license to
| produce Z80s and didn't think they would be able to reverse
| engineer it quickly enough. But they did have a reverse-
| engineered 6502 clone with the patented bits removed, and
| US copyright law didn't cover IC lithography yet, and would
| they be interested in that instead?
| tagoregrtst wrote:
| So old chips arent covered since cppyright didnt extend
| to lithography.
|
| Either way, change the lithography keeping the chip
| electrically the same and you're good to go
| beckman466 wrote:
| Zeloof's latest video: _Z2 - Upgraded Homemade Silicon Chips_ :
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IS5ycm7VfXg
|
| unpaywalled Wired story:
| https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wired.com%2Fstory%...
| usama789 wrote:
| sdze wrote:
| sfifs wrote:
| Sure but doing all that at such a young age is so impressive
| gitfan86 wrote:
| As someone who grew up poor, but is now not poor, this is what
| I want for my kids. Taking on projects that they find
| interesting and challenging, and sharing it with the world.
|
| I will be very sad if my kids end up doing nothing with their
| lives or spend it online making negative comments all day.
| markus_zhang wrote:
| It requires a lot of exploration and guidance thus I'm super
| interested in how his childhood looks like. I myself wasted
| tons of time when I was young, ended up with a mediocre job
| and struggling with building a hobby. I have a 16 month boy
| and definitely wants him walk a different route.
| artemonster wrote:
| If you don't have anything to say on topic, then just...don't
| say anything
| icefox11 wrote:
| Your definition of "anything" appears to encompass only
| "positive" things.
| artemonster wrote:
| No, anything of _value_. The thing that makes HN different
| from any other craphole like reddit is that the comment
| section in the link is as valuable (if not even more) than
| the link itself. This is possible when commenters willingly
| omit any flamebait, dismissive crap (like the comment
| above), etc.
| rosndo wrote:
| Is being rich a "negative" thing now?
|
| It's just a completely worthless observation, take the
| pointless virtue signaling somewhere else.
| icefox11 wrote:
| My comment was merely a semantic point, really boring
| actually. I don't really understand your frame to
| comprehend how your originated your first sentence. As
| far as i can understand you appear to have misinterpreted
| my reply. With that in mind i suppose your "observation"
| is completely worthless as well.
| madengr wrote:
| progre wrote:
| Surely there are worse things to do than making educational
| YouTube videos while living of the blood of the proletariat?
| oaiey wrote:
| Richness is a factor to enable this but the differentiator is
| will. A lot of rich kids waste their time with BS... This one
| worked hard and showed will to do something. Let us appreciate
| this.
| sennight wrote:
| Not that long ago the vast majority of scientific progress
| originated from rich men doing it in their free time. Does it
| really matter that they published their results for bragging
| rights instead of a need to fulfill some goofy academic
| pipeline requirements? Because those that think that money is
| the only thing standing between them and meaningful
| achievement... well, no amount of money will change that for
| them.
| DarylZero wrote:
| I was with you at first but then...
|
| > Because those that think that money is the only thing
| standing between them and meaningful achievement... well,
| no amount of money will change that for them
|
| What? Why couldn't they just be right? You yourself just
| said:
|
| > Not that long ago the vast majority of scientific
| progress originated from rich men doing it in their free
| time
|
| Is a person still not allowed to understand the fact that
| if they had more money they could accomplish more things?
| sennight wrote:
| I worded it exactly as intended when I said "meaningful
| achievement" instead of "wildest dream". If the scope of
| your ambition is to push the envelope in astrophysics,
| you probably already have enough resources at your
| disposal - and if you don't, a very sophisticated radio
| astronomy setup is easily within the reach of most
| individuals and certainly a handful of friends. But if
| your ambition is very specifically to build a radio
| telescope on the dark side of the moon... well yeah, that
| would take a lot of money that you don't have and never
| will. But even if somebody gifted the amount to you, that
| radio telescope still isn't getting built - because it
| was never something that could be achieved at the
| individual scale in the first place. So the money wasn't
| the showstopper. Same story with chip fabrication. If
| somebody is whining about their inability to execute
| their dream design due to lack of resources - dropping a
| $500M EUV stepper on them won't fix their problem.
| quantumwannabe wrote:
| I think what he is arguing is that someone with a
| negative attitude ("he can only do that because he's
| rich!") won't accomplish anything even if they were
| granted unlimited funding because they are focused on
| coming up with excuses instead of thinking about what
| they _can_ do. There are plenty of poor people in third-
| world countries who have far less than the original
| commentator (who presumably lives in the first world) who
| have built very impressive things, especially considering
| the resources they have available. It is an attitude
| problem, not a financial one.
| sennight wrote:
| Put more bluntly than I was willing, but pretty much. I
| think this would be the case for the majority of the
| envious complaints, and the remainder would be a
| laughably unrealistic over-estimation of the power of
| money. As in: it doesn't suddenly make you smarter, more
| industrious, or gift you the ability to perform complex
| project management involving large organizations.
| goodpoint wrote:
| Nobody here is denying his skill and motivation.
| xor99 wrote:
| His videos are an excellent educational resource that everyone
| can access easily. He's following that style (e.g. Applied
| Science) that is valuable for others wanting to learning how to
| build technologies without all of the fake complexity and
| grandstanding/secrecy that can sometimes accompany it. Nothing
| wrong with that!
| xor99 wrote:
| "One of Zeloof's best finds was a broken electron microscope
| that cost $250,000 in the early '90s; he bought it for $1,000
| and repaired it."
| was_a_dev wrote:
| Such find is niche, it doesn't happen outside of the US. I
| imagine it only happens in pockets of the US (say near a
| prominent university)
| Avamander wrote:
| A thousand dollars is an achievable amount of money for a
| smart kid in a poor family. I have had good friends from
| really poor families in Europe make more from bug bounty
| programs. If that's you're trying imply.
| astura wrote:
| No, It's not.
|
| I was a poor kid and didn't get financial support from my
| parents in young adulthood/college. I couldn't even
| fathom spending $1,000 on non-essential expenses during
| college. I was living entirely on student loans and
| minimum wage summer jobs - When that's your life you
| can't think about anything but pure survival. It's an
| entirely different mindset that I have now as a
| financially secure person.
|
| If I got a $1,000 windfall during college it would go
| straight to bills/food. It would be entirely unfathomable
| to spend it on anything else. $1,000 is more than my
| monthly income during my college years.
| toomanydoubts wrote:
| $1300 is my monthly income as software engineer with 9
| years of experience(in a third world country).
| bradlys wrote:
| Sorry. Posters here don't understand. Why didn't you have
| FAANG internships? Why didn't you have an incredible
| scholarship that overpaid you and allowed you to spend
| $2000+/month on non-essential expenses cause everything
| else was covered. Not relatable! Not relatable! Does not
| compute!
|
| People here are incredibly out of touch. $1000 for a poor
| college kid is a huge amount of fucking money. I had a
| full ride, monthly stipend, and jobs. Yet $1000 would've
| crushed me in many of my years in college and definitely
| wouldn't have been something I would just splurge on for
| one month. It's also only $1000 to purchase, doesn't
| include transport, doesn't include repairs, and doesn't
| include all the additional work to get it running.
|
| Peak HN out of touchness running in this thread.
| Avamander wrote:
| > During college
|
| And living alone? If you're under the same roof as your
| parents you don't have such expenses.
|
| Even more so if you're underage.
| goodpoint wrote:
| > A thousand dollars is an achievable amount of money for
| a smart kid in a poor family
|
| This is a by-the-book example of privilege.
|
| And even if a poor "kid" has the combination of ability
| and luck to obtain $1K most poor people would spend such
| money on basic needs like food, clothing and house
| repairs than a hobby. And that would be the most
| reasonable choice.
| Avamander wrote:
| > This is a by-the-book example of privilege.
|
| Yes the privilege of living in a 430 sq ft apartment with
| your sibling and parent, with the family making
| approximately $12k a year in total. LOL
| qayxc wrote:
| > If that's you're trying imply.
|
| That's just _one_ piece of equipment, though. Plus it 's
| one of the cheaper parts and let's not mention the fact
| that this "spare garage" is bigger than many apartments
| in other parts of the world...
|
| So it's not insignificant at all. If you live in a rented
| apartment (e.g. about 60% of all Swiss people), not even
| money will make up for the fact that you simply cannot do
| something like that because there's just no space.
|
| It's many things that have to come together to make this
| possible - "will" or "talent" alone just doesn't cut it.
| xor99 wrote:
| Yeah, no denying other factors but repairing that
| electron microscope is no walk in the park and it prob
| enables others to do it even cheaper given the
| walkthrough style tutorial. I'm just replying to a pretty
| flippant characterisation (see top comment) and not
| ignorant about other issues relating to circumstances and
| location like you mention.
| temp8964 wrote:
| Yeah better than those spend most of their money and time on
| "cool" stuff, like clubbing, travelling, hiking, biking, etc.,
| which = I don't know what to do but I just don't want to work.
| danielrpa wrote:
| Amazing!
|
| "Zeloof says he doesn't know for sure what he wants to do after
| graduating this spring" - I hope we don't hear later that he went
| to work for FAANG. One the saddest things about Big Tech is how
| they take young talent away from innovative, potentially
| competing enterprises and into busy work internal projects just
| because they can.
| dav_Oz wrote:
| If one looks a century back: AT&T, Xerox, IBM ... those were
| opportunities we can romanticize in hindsight looking back at
| the glowing examples of Bell Labs, PARC etc. Today's Big Tech
| is unrivaled in its unique position to fund R&D.
|
| To put it on the talent's shoulder to decide against it ...?
| One can hope for individual cases but it is futile as Big Tech
| has fundamentally tilted the playing field not only on things
| like information flow but also on talent pool in their favor.
| From a system's POV at some point this of course gets stuck.
|
| For example Musk tries to outpace this with his "rate of
| innovation" concept which on surface seems like a refreshing
| idea but is running on an outdated and collapsing hardware
| ("actual existing globalization") resulting in absurd numbers
| on the BBI like $243B. Leaving aside the forgone "sign-
| changing" and hefty "printing" by the central processors,
| initiated manually by a curious circle of people with access
| who decided it was a good idea.
| beckman466 wrote:
| > I hope we don't hear later that he went to work for FAANG.
| One the saddest things about Big Tech is how they take young
| talent away from innovative, potentially competing enterprises
| and into busy work internal projects just because they can.
|
| yes i hope Zeloof (or someone else young, enthusiastic and
| social media adept like him) turns into the Marcin Jakubowski
| [1] or Dave Hakkens [2] of semi-conductors.
|
| in this exciting still-early open source digital paradigm, a
| new type of leadership is required with a massive focus on
| horizontal knowledge production and transmission, a focus on a
| multitude of pedagogical styles, as well as a deep foundational
| belief in the abilities of our fellow humans (since it's easy
| and common to either believe we are 1) over-special or 2) dumb,
| as our schools are stuck in this reward/punishment paradigm
| which both 1) over-estimates a small number of students' skills
| because of advantages they gained outside of school (were you
| born with wealthy parents/community who had time and money to
| encourage/support you), or 2) which forces you into
| straightjacketed, (pedagogically) un-diverse, un-tailored
| learning journeys that make you take steps too quickly (a way
| to filter out as many working class people as possible except
| for a select few, by design)).
|
| [1] _Marcin Jakubowski: Open-sourced blueprints for
| civilization_ : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GEMkvT0DEk
|
| [2] _Precious Plastic Universe: a big bang for plastic
| recycling_ : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Os7dREQ00l4
| nobodyandproud wrote:
| If he sets up a franchise business to open-up custom chip
| hardware manufacturing; that would be amazing.
|
| The US military alone I feel needs this sort of redundancy; not
| to mention the freedom we need from closed-source hardware.
| pyb wrote:
| There is a currently a window of opportunity to hire Sam before
| FAANG does.
| moffkalast wrote:
| When it comes down to it I doubt most "innovative,
| potentially competing enterprises" can offer even close to a
| competitive salary.
| TrackerFF wrote:
| It's hard to compete with FAANG, Finance, and Consulting.
| Unfortunately, that's where a lot of people end up.
| gumby wrote:
| There are plenty of people who prefer a different environment
| and culture from what those big companies have. Once the pay
| reaches level X ( different for each person) other factors
| become more important.
|
| Who knows what this person wants? He probably doesn't either.
| nicoburns wrote:
| Yes, and that's why we should be taxing the hell out of these
| companies. It's not just about raising revenue. It's about
| allowing other companies to compete with them.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Why should I, as a young person, support a policy
| intentionally punishing companies for competing over my
| labor power just to make it so I have to work for petit-
| bourgeois small tech companies that can't pay as much?
| brewdad wrote:
| Because that tax revenue has to come from somewhere. If
| it doesn't come from the corporations or the 1%, guess
| who gets the bill?
|
| The 2-20%. Especially those who are W2 employees and have
| limited options for offsetting their taxable income.
| nicoburns wrote:
| Perhaps because you might want to live in a society where
| our economic activity is directed at activities which
| actually promote our collective wealth and wellbeing.
| relaxing wrote:
| Because they're no longer competing. They wield monopoly
| power that is anticompetitive, and it's bad for
| everything else you value. (Assuming you value more than
| streaming media, two retailers, and ads.)
| whimsicalism wrote:
| They have monopoly power in the tech labor market? How
| so?
| relaxing wrote:
| Isn't the collective wisdom around here that there's no
| competing with FAANG when it comes to job offers?
|
| And we know they've engaged in anticompetitive behavior
| among themselves when it comes to recruiting. I would be
| unsurprised to find out it still takes place.
|
| But I think the point was monopoly power from their core
| products is the real issue, and that enables the
| astronomical salaries.
| resueman wrote:
| The point of anticompetitve behavior in the hiring market
| is to be able to pay less to get people.
|
| The fact that they pay the highest prices for people
| means they sure suck at it.
| kortex wrote:
| I'm quite pro-taxing-corporations, but I don't see the
| connection. How is taxing certain tech companies more going
| to make the field more competitive? IMHO anti-trust laws
| are the tools need here. I don't see how you could target
| _just_ the FAANG-esque companies with higher taxes without
| collateral impact to the very competitors you want to get
| more market share.
| yarky wrote:
| What's the logic here? Do you somehow think that taxes will
| encourage innovation ?
|
| Anybody can compete, but apparently most of us choose not
| to. Who forces a young talent to settle for a job instead
| of taking the risk to innovate ? Maybe risk-taking for
| innovation is what could be the encouraged through
| taxation.
| fartcannon wrote:
| The money being required to live a normal life is the
| problem. A Star Trek style cashless society would allow
| people to live their life as they see fit, and would
| undoubtedly unlock a huge jump in human ingenuity.
|
| But I don't think we are evolved enough to deal yet. We'd
| just end up in a communist prison life or something as
| people selfishly try to get more for themselves.
| Roddenberry thought an event like finding
| extraterrestrial life would be the push humans need, but
| I'm not so sure anymore.
| hiptobecubic wrote:
| One thing I never understood is that star fleet and the
| federation are somehow post-scarcity utopias, but you
| still have "gold-plated latinum" driving a huge
| underground criminal counter-culture. What's the point?
| The ferenghi should be having a cultural existential
| crisis, but instead they are happy just charging people
| for drinks that can be replicated freely.
| grogenaut wrote:
| my understanding is that the space the ferrengi operate
| in doesnt operate much with federation space. ds9 is in
| deep space. and you cant make gold pressed latinum in a
| replicator. so it is a good trade item for working on a
| frontier and as a currency as the federation cant just
| print it.
|
| but dont quote me.
|
| its also a plot device to let them talk about economics.
| at_compile_time wrote:
| You don't understand because it doesn't make sense. It's
| just fun sci-fi storytelling.
| emteycz wrote:
| I don't remember gold-plated latinum being used within
| the Federation itself, all their worlds were blissful
| utopias. DS9 was outside the Federation, and at a place
| and time where the major civilizations were at war for
| decades. And even in DS9, the Starfleet officers never
| had any interest whatsoever in latinum.
| nicoburns wrote:
| > Do you somehow think that taxes will encourage
| innovation ?
|
| I think that taxing large companies more than small ones
| might. The bedrock of capitalism is competition, and that
| is significantly stifled if big players with large
| amounts of capital can simply buy out anything
| innovative.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> Do you somehow think that taxes will encourage
| innovation ?_
|
| That's what some EU members think. Ask us how that's
| going :)
|
| That's why most of the big and wealthy companies hare are
| around 100 years old or more, vs about 30 years old in
| the US.
|
| Here in Austria you can get various government and EU
| grants for your startup and tax waivers on social
| security, and if by some miracle, you don't crash and
| burn like 95% of startups and manage to produce a semi-
| profitable company in the end, then you have to pay to
| the government retroactively all the social security
| contributions and taxes that have been previously waived
| over the past years, which is the final nail in the
| coffin for most companies here never growing or scaling
| beyond a couple of guys from uni in an apartment kind of
| company.
|
| Therefore most of the innovation happens nearly
| exclusively within academia, as "outside" it's a pretty
| hostile tax environment that mostly favors those 100 year
| old companies that already have solid revenue streams.
| wowokay wrote:
| I must be misunderstanding your comment. You are saying
| that younger companies in the US are becoming more
| wealthy and innovating more or at the same level as a few
| entrench EU companies that have successfully stifled the
| EU market ensuring they never lose there market share or
| have a need to innovate to complete in a free market, is
| that correct?
| Dracophoenix wrote:
| He's saying that the various EU governments has stifled
| startups by offering "subsidies" (that operate more like
| loans) only to demand repayment for them at rate much
| faster than these startups are capable of building
| value/marketability/profit, resulting in many of them
| being DOA or remain limited in size until they are
| swallowed up by a bigger company.
| vasili111 wrote:
| That means that country that will do that will not have
| competitive big tech companies and other countries will
| have.
|
| Also, big companies are needed because there are
| technologies that cannot be produced by small companies. I
| do not understand recent tendency to make them look bad.
| Big companies are good for country and economy. Punishing
| companies for success is harmful for the progress.
|
| I think letting market decide is better choice.
| Overregulation leads to decrease in competition and
| production.
|
| Also, what is bad in it of big companies need to compete
| for talents? This competition leads for better
| opportunities and bigger salaries. I think it is good that
| person has a freedom of choice were to go.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > I think letting market decide is better choice.
| Overregulation leads to decrease in competition and
| production.
|
| Not intrinsically, obviously, as anti-trust clearly
| shows. I am not anti-big intrinsically, for many of the
| reasons identified.
|
| But I do think there are obvious downsides to be guarded
| against. If anything, as technology improves,
| technological barriers to entry should decrease and less
| big companies will be needed to work on certain advanced
| technologies.
| blululu wrote:
| This is not a recent trend. America has had a big
| political issue over large industry since day one. The
| Jeffersonian vision of a nation of yeoman farmers (who
| maybe owned slaves) vs. an industrial economy built on
| science and technology. This shows up in debates over
| railroads (anti-trust laws start here). It leads to the
| financing of canals, and cars (more democratic forms of
| transportation). It leads to subsidies for single family
| homes vs multi family living. It leads to the constant
| struggle to break up AT&T and liquidate telecom equipment
| manufacturing (lucent had other problems). And yeah it
| leads to a desire to split up large companies that make
| good money for the country.
|
| Of course a lot of processes also scale with size. With a
| decent welfare system this greater efficiency could also
| be tapped to achieve widespread prosperity.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| I agree that central distinction between industrial
| economy vs. yeoman is a big cultural clash in the US.
|
| I don't see what makes cars more "democratic" or anti-
| trust as firmly on the "yeoman" side of things.
| blululu wrote:
| A car is privately owned and oriented toward a small
| scale family/individual. It can go from anywhere to
| anywhere at anytime (assuming roads). Unlike a railroad
| which achieves much greater efficiency but requires more
| fixed schedules and routes. Everyone must move to the
| same place at the same time together. A lot of this is
| imagined but people really did buy into this (same with
| canals), and given the 200 year distrust of railroads,
| that gave a lot of political fodder to break up urban
| rail lines and make cities more car based.
| narrator wrote:
| The reason big companies have a huge advantage in the U.S
| is they get access to the jet stream of public market money
| that goes through highly regulated employee pensions and
| 401ks to Vanguard and Blackrock and then to the companies
| in public stock market indexes. The companies that form the
| stock market indexes get that money for very very cheap
| relative to small companies who have to find investors one
| by one or, outside of venture backed tech, take loans at
| high interest rates.
|
| If someone can run a profitable business when money is hard
| to come by as a non-public company, it makes sense for a
| public company to buy them because they can get money much
| more easily and expand the smaller company's operations and
| make an even bigger profit. They can even run the company
| poorly and still make money because their money is cheaper.
|
| Essentially, it's an information and regulation problem.
|
| The best thing yet invented, taxwise, to counteract this
| advantage that big businesses have in attracting money is
| Qualified Small Business Stock (QSBS)[1]. It' a great tax
| incentive program because it massively rewards people for
| investing in startups. It is highly targeted to encourage
| that and not be a general loophole.
|
| [1]https://www.sba.gov/blog/qualified-small-business-stock-
| what...
| Fissionary wrote:
| The idea of imposing punitive taxes on some companies, to
| level the playing field for everyone else, reminds me of
| Kurt Vonnegut's "Harrison Bergeron". It wouldn't have the
| desired effect anyway, since employee salaries are tax-
| deductible.
|
| A better way to promote innovation might be through
| cultivating a spirit of entrepreneurship in young people,
| supporting startup accelerators, and handing out grants to
| promising candidates like the one in the article.
| supportlocal4h wrote:
| I heard a story at a recent robotics tournament about a
| team that had competed together all the way from 7th
| grade through 12th grade. As the story went, the
| teammates were hired en masse by a certain high profile
| company who agreed to pay for all their college, etc,
| etc.
|
| I thought it was an interesting story as I heard it
| repeated among the students at the tournament. Many of
| the teams have sponsors who donate $1000s so the
| schools/clubs can buy parts, etc. They are trying to
| encourage interest in STEM. But if the story is true, one
| company could spend $1000000 and inspire 1000s of
| students, generating lottery psychology. Of course, one
| person could just make up such a story for $0 and achieve
| the same thing. But it amuses me to think of some
| altruistic billionaire having a little fun and doing such
| a thing.
| nicoburns wrote:
| > A better way to promote innovation might be through
| cultivating a spirit of entrepreneurship in young people,
| supporting startup accelerators, and handing out grants
| to promising candidates like the one in the article.
|
| Taxing large corporations seems like it would be an
| excellent way in which to fund such grants.
| osrec wrote:
| Comfortable money + marketing hype keep it that way
| unfortunately.
|
| If governments really wanted to prioritise innovation, they
| should consider giving a banker's salary to a research
| scientist.
| sseagull wrote:
| The annual budget of the entire NSF is $8.28B. The NIH is
| $42B
|
| Google's net profit was $40B in 2020. Apple's was $94.6B in
| 2021. (all according to wikipedia).
|
| Edit: The above is net income, so AFTER paying all the
| exorbitant salaries.
|
| Apple alone makes enough money that it could fund pretty
| much all current publicly-funded science happening in the
| US at the current rate. That is a ridiculous amount of
| money, and publicly-funded science just cannot compete at
| that level.
|
| (Currently on publicly-funded grants. Underpaid relative to
| what I could make elsewhere, but happy to be contributing
| to the greater good rather than helping some advertising
| company).
| amoorthy wrote:
| I'm torn on this. No doubt money is important but how much
| is needed? I've been thinking about this for a while [1]
| and I think more important to drive innovation is to change
| our culture to admire people who dedicate themselves to
| solving big problems over a long period of time. And a
| close second would be a culture that prizes modesty and
| eschews material wealth.
|
| I realize this may be a pipe-dream but it feels like a
| better long-term strategy than "pay researchers more than
| FAANG".
|
| [1] https://www.curiousjuice.com/blog-0/bid/89407/How-much-
| salar...
| bbarnett wrote:
| Governments do, if they work on bombs. Or spying. Or on
| figuring out the other guy's bombs.
| jjoonathan wrote:
| Then why are the NSA and NRO postings always so
| uncompetitive? DoE research postings are even worse.
| vostok wrote:
| Do you have a source for this? Spying sounds like a
| pretty interesting job if you can make something similar
| to FANG.
| tigerlily wrote:
| There's that fantasy crystal ball company...
| bbarnett wrote:
| Algo coders, predictive analysis of publicly available
| data, large societal trends prediction, using social
| media data to detect malign intent prior to action,
| analyzing the same to look for foreign activity, hacking
| foreign infrastructure, etc etc, CIA/NSA and other
| agencies hire these types right from University
| typically.
|
| They also fund startups which may be used for national
| interests and so on.
|
| Much of the time, they contact you, not the other way
| around.
| reasonabl_human wrote:
| Source?
|
| Lived and worked in D.C. and have a TS/SCI, sat for
| FSP.... The IC doesn't pay even close to big tech rates.
| There is also no mystery around someone contacting you,
| just apply to the NSA / CIA / etc. if those paths pique
| your interest.
|
| Startups working on IC-relevant tech getting funding via
| non-traditional means is absolutely true but not
| guaranteed.
| TigeriusKirk wrote:
| I looked at NSA/CIA when I was graduating college and the
| compensation was notably below market and with very rigid
| structures. I was given to understand a common path was
| to put in some time at the actual agencies and then go
| over to a contractor where you could make good money.
|
| That was 30 years ago, though. Could be completely
| different now.
| rdtwo wrote:
| Same deal when I graduated. They told me there was no big
| paycheck and no glory and I just noped out mid interview.
| mysterydip wrote:
| At least in the US, they're generally limited to salaries
| on the "general schedule", and management gets paid more
| than technical people, because "it wouldn't be fair" to
| have subordinates that make more than you. So there's a
| built-in glass ceiling for tech careers.
| https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-
| leave/salaries...
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| "They" (political leaders) choose to limit salaries, and
| if a problem is urgent enough, they can somehow find a
| way pay more. It is just politics. Paying more today
| increases cash spend today, and that looks bad for them
| come election time.
| halpert wrote:
| Maybe "it's not fair to have subordinates earn more" was
| the justification given to you, but businesses rarely
| make decisions based on what's fair. Engineers are
| valuable, but individual engineers are largely
| replaceable. Being able to coordinate a large group
| successfully also has a lot of value.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Think it has a lot more to do with proximity to those
| controlling the purse-strings.
|
| Intra-firm compensation is not nearly as "rational" as
| you are making it out to be.
| halpert wrote:
| Is it really proximity to the purse string? Because even
| large, profitable founder-led tech companies, where
| founders have full control and motive to run the company
| efficiently, adopt middle management. And what evidence
| is there that middle management is unnecessary? The only
| evidence presented is theoretical critiques from
| engineers who feel they stand to gain from the removal of
| management.
| ipaddr wrote:
| Let's be honest. Engineer managers are largely replacable
| and more easily than individual engineers. The pool is
| larger and can accept more manager unrelated experience.
| There is more to this.
|
| As the person senior leadership communicates with this
| person is seen as more important than they are. Senior
| leadership wants to maintain a leveling system to
| separate groups of people. It's a hedge a flat
| organization which makes senior leadership less
| important.
|
| You could swap out this person with another without
| losing speed but it doesn't work as well with an
| engineer.
| halpert wrote:
| Then why don't companies adopt a flatter structure with
| higher compensated engineers? The goal of a company is to
| make money after all. If management could be removed and
| top engineers retained with higher salaries, then a
| company would surely have an advantage in the
| marketplace. Since this doesn't happen, there must be
| more to the picture than people in upper management
| simply clinging to their jobs. If removing middle
| management were so obvious a change to make, then
| shareholders would demand it.
| RugnirViking wrote:
| this kind of reasoning simply does not follow in the real
| world. There are many, many cases of some companies out
| competing others. Why? if they were all rational actors
| none would have any advantage over the other.
| hiptobecubic wrote:
| I would be careful with the "if they do it it must be
| sensible" reasoning. There are a lot of reasons that
| modeling firms using homo-economicus and perfect markets
| doesn't pan out.
| halpert wrote:
| To me, this is a case to apply Occam's razor. What is
| more likely, that this decades old, Dilbertesque
| criticism of management is true, yet somehow eluded the
| purview of shareholders? Or that businesses are being run
| in a relatively efficient manner given the current human
| condition?
| plandis wrote:
| Just because something is good for shareholders doesn't
| mean it's good for non-management employees or society at
| large.
| halpert wrote:
| I never claimed it was. I was replying to a discussion on
| worker efficiency.
| jjoonathan wrote:
| Rules for Rulers is real.
|
| It's not that management is dumb, it's that every layer
| of management is self-interested. Every hierarchy has to
| contend with principal agent problems. Organizations can
| do a better or worse job of it, but the incentives are
| always there and they lead to predictable inefficiencies
| which are frequently observed. Everyone knows this, but
| unless you know how to get someone to manage without
| self-interest, you aren't in a position to solve the
| problem. Nobody is. That's why it lingers.
| halpert wrote:
| Is self-interested management really an inefficiency if
| it's unavoidable? You don't get to run a company in a
| vacuum. You have to run it within the bounds of human
| behavior. Saying that "if only all humans acted in some
| way against their nature, then the system would be more
| efficient" isn't an effective management strategy.
| jjoonathan wrote:
| You were arguing that RfR / Dilbert coludn't be true
| because if it were, it would have been optimized away. I
| argued that no, just because it happens and is broadly
| understood doesn't mean that it can be optimized away.
|
| You can play semantic games about whether or not it
| should be called inefficiency -- I don't really care what
| you call it -- but the RfR / Dilbert dynamic is very real
| and very prevalent.
| ipaddr wrote:
| Many start out flat and as they grow they need to
| introduce middle management.
|
| Middle management becomes necessary.
|
| But the question is around pay. Should they always make
| more because they sit higher in the org chart?
|
| I would suggest they make more because of power
| structures not utility or because they are not as easy to
| replace.
|
| Because of first class shares, senior leadership shares
| percentages shareholders with a vote are often the people
| in power. Common shareholders don't hold much power.
| jjoonathan wrote:
| The Rules for Rulers theory vs the Leveraged Value
| Creation theory.
|
| Naturally, reality is a bit of both, but people on top
| push LVC hard while they never mention RfR. A good leader
| earns their salary multiples over, but many poor leaders
| rake in the dough just from RfR.
| resueman wrote:
| I hate to say it, but I can imagine that a group of
| engineres with a manager nipping at the heels can be much
| more valuable in total to a company than a group of
| engineers left to their own devices. Some may be great at
| being independently productive but most probably are not.
|
| Of course some random idiot nagging the engineers won't
| be worth much, they need to be experts at the specific
| business and domain to bring value in this situation.
| Which also makes them harder to replace.
|
| Certainly, companies with engineers who are capable and
| independet problem-solvers, _and_ who are experts at the
| company 's needs and the domain it operates in, are the
| most valuable. These are not uncommon either. But a fast-
| growing company in a fast-growing industry has zero
| chance of solely hiring such people. They need to widen
| their net to people that require managing.
| ipaddr wrote:
| The project manager has the nudging role and the best
| insight on deliveriables. A manager usually manages other
| administration aspects and inspirational at times.
| wowokay wrote:
| Ironically they see engineers as replaceable and view
| every member of leadership as a Jeff Bezos level unique
| business edge. I'm all honesty I have just always viewed
| managements role as a different skill set, one that has
| successfully thrived longer then the IT industry has even
| existed. Even while we as engineers tend to feel they are
| replaceable I think we don't see the value in the work
| they do to ensure we get funding, resources, and
| leadership support.
| xvector wrote:
| TC isn't everything. I'm pulling truly bonkers TC at 26, and
| yet I feel a deep void inside me.
|
| I recently realized that this void is because I am not living
| by my ideals/purpose. I know what I want to do in life, I
| know how I want to contribute to the story of humanity, and
| yet I am letting my greed overrule me and force me into a
| different path. Essentially, I am betraying myself, and this
| causes that feeling of unfulfillment/void.
|
| I suspect I am not the only FAANG/unicorn/quant engineer that
| feels this way. Don't get me wrong, I greatly enjoy the day
| to day technical work I do. But my day job does not help me
| work towards what I have defined as my existential purpose.
|
| Recently I decided I will change this, whether through
| volunteering or a new job (even if it might pay less.) I'm
| more excited than I have been in months. I will die happy if
| I can positively impact humanity towards the direction I hope
| for it to go towards.
| hawk_ wrote:
| It's great to be able to pull "bonkers TC" and not feel
| fulfilled than to not pull that TC and still feel a void.
|
| "All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind".
|
| And even finding quality volunteering opportinities has
| been difficult. There's all kind of parasitic behaviour
| when free money or labor is on offer.
| stackbutterflow wrote:
| Trust me it's not better on the other side. Followed my
| dreams and I'll forever be financially decades behind you
| (i.e I'll never catch up) unless I win the lottery or
| something. I'm 100% sure if I were in your shoes I too
| would feel exactly as you do. The lesson here is to be
| content with what we have and what we've done. At least now
| you have the financial freedom to spend the rest of your
| life more or less as you see fit.
| throwaway2333 wrote:
| A long time ago, I had the mindset that I really didn't
| care about money: I wanted to live my "ideal" life, no
| matter what. So I frittered away my early twenties being
| a bum, trying to materialize what I felt was the "dream."
|
| Then I got kicked out of my home and had to work back-
| breaking jobs, commute 2-4 hours either walking or
| biking, and at the end of the day barely earn enough
| money to make any progress (I was lucky that a family
| member let me sleep in their house, otherwise I would've
| been living paycheck to paycheck).
|
| During that time I felt like my mind forced me to
| "withdraw inside myself," so my spirit wouldn't be
| completely broken. It had seemed that all of my thoughts,
| feelings, and emotions had been stripped away from me,
| and the only things left were those needed to "survive."
|
| A little bit later I was lucky enough to get my first
| software job, making a very good salary, and lift myself
| out of poverty (and start "financially progressing"); but
| even though my life had been the best it ever was, I
| never regained the feelings that I lost.
|
| I think what I lost was my naive worldview: one that was
| modeled by two decades worth of living upper middle
| class; where I survived by virtue of my birth, and not
| because I personally did anything -- detached from
| reality.
|
| It was a very self-centered existence. I was only
| concerned about my own pleasure, and escaping from any
| displeasure ("fat FIRE" was an escape from the perceived
| displeasure of having to work, and not being able to
| partake in idle leisure). Other than this, I had no
| values, nor real "ideals" (but I did have an "ideal" life
| I wanted to build).
|
| I think that's where my early "dreams" came from: a self-
| centered pursuit of personal gain and maximization of
| pleasure. I didn't really care about anything or anyone,
| nor was my existence driven by deeply-ingrained values
| that could serve as a bottomless well of direction and
| energy. I was simply living an animalistic life.
|
| Being thrust into the "real world" destroyed all these
| notions; or rather, living in reality forced me to
| restrain myself: my emotions had no structure, and so I
| was fluttering about to wherever they took me. Having to
| "box" them in to do something useful and purposeful
| finally wrangled them in, and "molded" my personality to
| something other than "do the things I like, and get away
| from the things I don't like."
|
| I would later have to rebuild my worldview and wrestle
| with the void in my soul that could no longer be filled
| with material distractions (a life-long process).
|
| During this process, I realized putting financial
| considerations as my number one priority would not lead
| me to anywhere fulfilled (neither would idle retirement).
| The only thought that rang "true" at the time was that I
| needed to cultivate values, and those would dictate my
| purpose.
|
| It's a never-ending process. And it always keeps me busy,
| but unlike focusing on material things, the fulfillment
| and sense of goodness I feel is not transient -- it
| lasts, and has built up through the years.
|
| This is how I went from trying to live an ideal life, to
| one where I live by ideals.
| wnolens wrote:
| I know this is a throwaway, but I would like to hear
| more. Your writing reflects my own life, but I'm in the
| wrestling part.
|
| Care to expand on this process of cultivating values, the
| wrestling with the void, where the sense of goodness
| comes from..
| bbarnett wrote:
| This.
|
| For whatever reason (personality, genes, whatever), I do
| not seem to be one who gets caught up in the envy of
| greener grass.
|
| https://writingexplained.org/idiom-dictionary/grass-is-
| alway...
|
| I've spent a large part of my life as a high end
| specialist, consulting, and thus, have had incredibly
| encompassing exposure to a huge variety of companies.
|
| Whether non-profits, government departments, or corps,
| it's humans which cause the often ineffectual result, of
| our loving attempts to being order, and stability to our
| labourious output.
|
| People are the same everywhere, and thus, so your
| endeavours will be.
|
| The grass is not greener on the other side.
|
| So what I would say is:
|
| * if you strike out on your own, you can at least move on
| past things which bore you
|
| * you need true financial independence to achieve this,
| to become a relaxed garage tinkerer of tech
|
| * right now, we are at a moment of golden opportunity.
| The markets are down. This is where you buy in. The
| returns are buying in these times, not in time of feast.
|
| So... maybe this is a good time to reassess. Invest. And
| plan to retire once you profit?
| [deleted]
| bjelkeman-again wrote:
| Working on something that feels like it makes a difference
| can be very rewarding. But my experience is that if it
| really makes a difference (how do you measure that is
| probably a book by itself), it is never easy.
|
| For the last 15 years I have worked on things that I felt
| needed doing. Others agreed. Even though our teams achieve
| something worthwhile it can often feel deeply frustrating.
| The challenges of financing something new, that doesn't fit
| the box of how it is normally done, at some useful scale,
| is hard. I don't want to do anything else, but sometimes it
| is very frustrating.
|
| In the end, I think there is so much one can work on that
| really makes a difference in "the story of humanity" as you
| call it, that there really is no need to take a job that
| goes against ideals you may hold. Healthcare, energy
| systems, data for better governance, food tech, Ed tech,
| the list goes on. There will be something interesting to
| work on I am certain.
| hidden-spyder wrote:
| What is TC?
| rzzzt wrote:
| Was about to ask the same thing. There are ~280
| resolutions to that initialism on a random website that
| I've found, none of which are easily applicable to the
| context.
| goldenkey wrote:
| One of the things I despise about these jobs is the
| overuse of initialisms and acronyms. It's literally
| gatekeeping even if done subconsciously. It also fucks
| with new hires quite a lot because they have no idea what
| AC, SOP, PR, NPS, etc mean
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Total Comp here, but in the subcontinent it also stands
| for something vulgar, so clarification or avoiding it is
| probably best.
| hiptobecubic wrote:
| Ironically, I don't know what "the subcontinent" refers
| to. Gatekeeping and in-speak happens naturally in every
| context.
| pedrosorio wrote:
| That one is much easier to Google though, as the
| expression is really only used to refer to one thing (the
| Indian subcontinent)
| RicoElectrico wrote:
| Total compensation, that is including bonuses, benefits
| and various forms of stock.
| lelanthran wrote:
| Total Cost
| jihadjihad wrote:
| Total Compensation, meaning it includes non-salary
| components such as shares of stock/options, other
| benefits, etc.
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| I think Maslow's hierarchy of needs [0] approximately
| explains what you're experiencing.
|
| This is also covered in the Book of Eccliastes [1]. IMHO
| it's a good meditation on the issue regardless of one's
| views on Abrahamic religions.
|
| [0]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecclesiastes
| wnolens wrote:
| Sounds like me at 26. I finally walked away from it at 28.
|
| Your window to return to bonkers tech money is wide so you
| can afford to go away from it a while. But after you do,
| you probably won't want to return. That's fine! Just sock
| away enough that you don't feel you have to, otherwise
| it'll feel like reinserting yourself in the matrix and it
| SUCKS.
| strikelaserclaw wrote:
| Don't listen to the negativity, Software Engineers are paid
| handsomely, if you find that your dream path isn't working
| out you can always return to highly paid work and make up
| pretty fast.
| ph2082 wrote:
| So much talent gone to FAANG.
|
| Also, where is my flying car?
| mgraczyk wrote:
| Idk as somebody who has worked at both Facebook and Google, the
| chip design going on at these companies is at the top end in
| innovation. Apple is even better. Certainly wouldn't be a bad
| outcome for civilization.
| fortran77 wrote:
| Translation: "I don't (or can't) work for a FAANG, so this kid
| shouldn't either."
|
| This line of thought is absurd. We have no idea where this
| individual wants to work, and we're here tearing apart a
| hypothetical job choice.
| danielrpa wrote:
| I am the parent and I work at a FAANG now. But I did have a
| company right out of college (which failed).
|
| FAANG now is a means for saving for my next enterprise, which
| hopefully will happen very soon.
| zulban wrote:
| Your comment reminds me of "those that can't do, teach". This
| is just a jaded insult. You know nothing about who you're
| replying to.
| fortran77 wrote:
| > You know nothing about who you're replying to.
|
| And you do?
| batty_alex wrote:
| They may not but we're supposed to reply in good faith,
| not assume OP is some sort of envious asshole
| sokoloff wrote:
| They're not the one "translating" (read: re-writing) a
| comment's content.
| fnord77 wrote:
| > innovative, potentially competing enterprises
|
| I feel like there hasn't been many of these recently. And the
| few that have been around get massive financing rounds that
| dilute options into nothing and never go ipo
| hiptobecubic wrote:
| Are you saying that Google, Facebook, etc have not been
| innovating over the last years? What does the landscape look
| like if you remove these companies' contributions from the
| public sphere?
| rdtwo wrote:
| Google is innovating to make your searches worse but more
| profitable...
| wyre wrote:
| What innovations have Google and Facebook had over the past
| few years? As far as I'm concerned Facebook could disappear
| overnight and the world would be a much better place.
| neogodless wrote:
| I think one of the great takeaways is his quote:
|
| > Maybe it's overconfidence, but I have a mentality that another
| human figured it out, so I can too, even if maybe it takes me
| longer
|
| Sometimes I explain what I do in software. "There is no magic. I
| don't like when there is magic. Some people do but it leaves me
| feeling unsure about what my code will do. Instead I tend to work
| very slowly at first, seeing what each little piece of code does
| and slowly seeing all the pieces work together. There's an
| important tool that I'm shocked to sometimes discover not all
| developers use - debugging. It's really just having the computer
| execute one line of code at a time and being able to see what the
| computer sees, and understand how things work at that level."
|
| Lithography is a black box to me... but of course it doesn't have
| to be. So it's exciting to see someone invest time and assemble
| the physical tools to learn this dark art from the comfort of
| their garage.
| emadabdulrahim wrote:
| This is something I've struggled with my whole life and still
| do to this day.
|
| I've had one of the worst educations, considering Egypt is at
| the bottom of the barrel for it's schooling system. So by the
| age of 25, I realize I haven't learned anything substantial.
|
| I've managed to escape that somehow and now been working at
| high growth companies as a Deisnger and SW developer in SF.
|
| Yet, because I'm basically self-taught and don't have good
| foundation in many topics such as Math, Compilers, and other
| important topics, I find myself extremely intimidated to
| approach such fields. For one, I realize I'll need to invest a
| lot of time to grasp them. Second, I get this feeling of
| anxiety that I'll never be able to get to the level I wish to
| be. Anxiety that can sometimes reach the level of a panic
| attack.
|
| It sounds dramatic and maybe even pathetic to admit that about
| myself, but I'm still trying to figure out how to not get so
| worked up about that stuff when I'm learning and feeling
| hopelessly stuck to fully understand something.
|
| Needless to say, I have a lot of work to do on myself.
| kilroy123 wrote:
| Just tackle it by doing 30-60 minutes a day of self study.
| After a year you'll rack up hundreds of hours of studying.
|
| Keep that up for 10 years and you're at thousands of hours of
| studying.
|
| Plus all the experience on the job. That'll compound for
| sure.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| What one fool can do, another can.
| taylorius wrote:
| Whatever the geek card equivalent of Amex Black is, this kid
| deserves it. Hats off to him!!
| knolan wrote:
| Huygens optics is a great YouTube channel with lots of homemade
| lithography and optics stuff.
|
| https://www.huygensoptics.com/
| jcims wrote:
| Story about a young person kicking ass and half the comments in
| here are from yeahbutters.
|
| Wordcloud - https://imgur.com/zeagyNf
| james-redwood wrote:
| HN anecdotally attracts some very cynical and negative
| commenters.
| fristechill wrote:
| Yes, we can honour him for his achievements at the same time
| as acknowledging that he's been very lucky. Otherwise we have
| to ask whether we're being inspired by envy and not merely by
| a desire for justice.
| esjeon wrote:
| Kicking ass is one thing, clearly it's an expensive hobby to
| following through the chipmaking history. The dedication is
| impressive, but, as long as his hobby doesn't affect the
| current paradigm, he's not kicking ass, but just a micro-
| celebrity on YT with expensive hobby + flexing.
|
| Note that I wrote this comment, because I just don't like blind
| positivity. Money is really a problem. There were people who
| talked about home-made chips for a long time, but the no.1
| issue had always been money. Optics and lithography is nothing
| new, and it just takes a lot of time, effort, and tons of money
| (+ opportunity cost) to find the right recipe that is
| reproducible.
| jcims wrote:
| I didn't realize there was a formal definition of 'kicking
| ass'.
| rendall wrote:
| People here are really focused on the question of his family
| wealth, but it's such a distraction. Even were they
| extravagantly wealthy, it is an astonishing accomplishment for
| anyone, never mind a high-school student / college undergrad.
| hnthrowaway0315 wrote:
| I'm more interested how he managed to master the knowledge of
| chip manufacturing plus a ton of electronics repairs (see his
| microscope and other equipment) at such an early age. Very
| admirable.
|
| Look at what he did:
|
| > Photolithography machines are expensive--up to $150 million--
| and so Zeloof made his own by bolting a modified conference room
| projector bought on Amazon onto a microscope. It projects his
| designs at tiny scale onto silicon wafers that Zeloof coats in
| material sensitive to ultraviolet light.
|
| > One of Zeloof's best finds was a broken electron microscope
| that cost $250,000 in the early '90s; he bought it for $1,000 and
| repaired it. He uses it to inspect his chips for flaws, as well
| as the nanostructures on butterfly wings.
|
| Damn this guy is good.
| savant_penguin wrote:
| omg he could make it a business to buy these microscopes, fix
| and resell for 100k each
| derac wrote:
| Assuming there are a lot of cheap broken electron microscopes
| floating around.
| erosenbe0 wrote:
| Think of all the kids who might start working on automotive
| stuff at 8 years old, building race car parts or engines or go
| karts. Then imagine the best of the best of thousands of them
| with parental? resources to build out a great kit and tinker
| with a lot stuff. This guy is the semiconductor equivalent.
| hnthrowaway0315 wrote:
| I'm very interested in his childhood education.
|
| I want my kid to start early on something he is interested in
| too but I don't really know how to do that. I know the
| general rules (expose him to a lot of stuffs, watch him do
| things, etc.) but don't know how to implement them properly.
| I myself wasted a lot of time in my childhood so I guess
| that's why I don't know how to do it properly.
| erosenbe0 wrote:
| You can't really force it and there isn't a formula. I'm
| just a journeyman software jockey but my brother got into
| Harvard, Yale, and Stanford even after skipping a year of
| high school.
| hwers wrote:
| You probably can't go wrong with giving your child
| resources that's too expensive for other children to be
| exposed to for some free future competitive advantage
| (which translates to adult success), as a general first
| heuristic.
| whatshisface wrote:
| You can easily go wrong when you zoom in from abstract
| resources and find yourself deciding which pieces of
| hardware they actually could use (almost none of which,
| it is assumed, you have used yourself.)
| bruceb wrote:
| AKA how Bill Gates because Bill Gates. One of the very
| few kids to have access to a computer at the time.
| adolph wrote:
| And Allen:
|
| _Microsoft co-founders Bill Gates and Paul Allen first
| met as teenagers in the late 1960s at Lakeside School in
| Seattle, when Gates was in eighth grade and Allen was in
| tenth grade._
|
| https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/02/microsoft-co-founders-
| bill-g...
|
| See also Levy: "Inside Bill's Brain Calls BS on Malcolm
| Gladwell's Outliers Theory":
|
| _Inside Bill 's Brain lays the Gladwell Theorem to
| waste. By delving into Gates' very early life, Guggenheim
| reveals that, basically, Bill Gates arrived on Earth as a
| Martian. From the instant baby Gates joined his well-off
| clan, he understood there was a giant impedance mismatch
| between his cosmic intellect and that of the world.
| There's an amazing moment when he recounts the time his
| parents had him take a test to get into an exclusive
| private school for the sixth grade. He asked himself, did
| he want to go, figuring that if not, he would purposely
| blow the test._
|
| https://www.wired.com/story/inside-bills-brain-outliers/
| erosenbe0 wrote:
| To be fair, Gates published one and only CS paper. It was
| on prefix sorting and shows pretty serious mastery of
| discrete math for his age or any age. Perhaps the co-
| author -- legendary algorithms professor Papadimitriou --
| honed the proofs but Gates was clearly not a one-trick
| programming pony.
|
| He also chased programming like a starved Tiger, doing
| things like looking through corporate trash bins for
| source listings and that sort of stuff. Not to mention
| that Allen was also a person of extreme intellect and
| Ballmer is actually a mathematician combined with a
| charismatic business brain and a small nuclear reactor in
| one.
| ezconnect wrote:
| He has support from his family.
| hnthrowaway0315 wrote:
| For sure, but I bet not all kids with support from their
| family do cool things. Or put it in the other way, you have
| to prove yourself worthy before getting any fund (even from
| parents).
| sabhiram wrote:
| What this "kid" has done in his garage would still be
| impressive with more than modest support from the venture
| community.
| bradlys wrote:
| > Or put it in the other way, you have to prove yourself
| worthy before getting any fund (even from parents).
|
| I really don't know where you got this mindset but it's
| 100% not true. I know many parents who throw many resources
| at their kids whenever their kids show even slight interest
| in something. Even if they don't show interest in many
| things - they still get great access.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| Yeah, absolutely. I think the best way to understand this
| kid is that he is definitely at the intersection of
| privilege and talent.
|
| That is not to take anything away from his achievements.
| This kid's kicking ass.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| The other factor is access to youtube to find likeminded
| people and have things explained and see what is
| possible. When I was young I loved computers but even
| install Linux or learn machine code seemed like this
| impenetrable world that was "for adults". I think the
| modern internet is great for people sharing knowhow.
|
| That said this man is a genius!
| resueman wrote:
| So basically a member of the middle class in a developed
| country. How remarkable.
| ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote:
| I don't know many middle class families who would buy 10s
| of thousands of dollars worth of equipment for their kid.
| resueman wrote:
| Well that goalpost sure made a leap. Spread it out over
| six years and imagine the kid is pulling in real cash
| with a youtube channel showcasing his projects.
| ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote:
| The 1000 dollars bill is for a single piece of equipment,
| a full lab is considerably more. The median household
| income is 70k in the U.S, in western Europe it's closer
| to 30k. The income distribution on youtube follows a
| power law. I don't think that puts it within reach of
| your average middle class family, even over 5 years.
| emteycz wrote:
| Many. Middle class is _a lot_ of people. Usually it goes
| into sports, though.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| There are a lot of middle class families who spend 10s of
| thousands of dollars on sports camps, dance lessons, ski
| instructors, piano tutors... if their kid was really
| excited by electronics instead I can see a lot of
| families helping with that hobby.
|
| Like yes that is a sizeable sum of money worthy of
| consideration but it's not at all prohibitive or unusual
| for a middle class family.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| I would describe what you said as upper-middle class at
| least. Everyone seems to have different definitions
| though and the tech crowd is probably skewed up.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| I'm sure it skews that way but I've seen middle or even
| lower-middle class families invest a _ton_ of resources
| into sports or dance specifically.
|
| (also, a lot of working class Asian families invest
| heavily into music)
| zomglings wrote:
| That was necessary but not sufficient for him to have built
| what he has. He deserves credit for what he has done.
| dqpb wrote:
| Where does one find broken electron microscopes from the 90s?
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Agreed! Such a cool project.
|
| Regarding the custom photolithography machine, I recall seeing
| some pictures of chip workers from the 70s that essentially did
| the same thing.
|
| A group of women (I'm pretty sure it was all women) were
| responsible for manually drawing out (actually more like
| cutting out) the chip designs on these big sheets, which were
| then projected down to create the photoresist masks.
| michaelt wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tape-out#History
| jacquesm wrote:
| Heh, I'll bet the makers of Photoshop _never_ saw this usecase of
| their software coming. What a great project.
|
| The registration headaches must be considerable, he needs to re-
| place the die in exactly the same spot for every pass of
| exposure.
| Yenrabbit wrote:
| I believe he can use the microscope to visually position the
| die right where it needs to be. It's a very clever setup!
| ayyylmao wrote:
| tagoregrtst wrote:
| Registration wall.
|
| Does the article say what he does with HF? Ive often thought home
| brew chip making at 70s scale would just be a lot of elbow
| grease, but definitely doable. Safety is not that hard. Chemicals
| not that bad. Nothing that American garage tinkerers haven't
| dealt with before (my favorite, tin can turbine)
|
| Except for the HF. Ill admit I dont know much about HF, I used it
| only once in a lab (making BJTs) but: HF is nasty dangerous,
| impossible (?) to get without a license, impossible to dispose
| properly.
|
| Is there an alternative to etch SiO2 or is this guy on the edge
| of legal and insane?
| moring wrote:
| Flourides might work, because they set HF free at a low rate. I
| always wanted to try SiO2 etching with ArmourEtch (glass
| etching paste, i.e. flourides) but got sidetracked. There might
| be other problems with that specific paste, for example I don't
| know if it contains abrasives, but if you have access to a
| chemical lab then flourides should be easy to obtain.
|
| AFAIK the chip industry uses flourides too (buffered oxide
| etch) because unbuffered HF has a too unpredictable etch rate.
| kortex wrote:
| HF is scary but not _that_ insane and not impossible to get
| without a license (in the US). You can get kits to etch glass
| which contain in-situ HF (armor etch for example). You can
| produce your own by obtaining fluoride salts and adding acid -
| though I would NOT recommend doing this without having some
| sort of lab chemistry training.
|
| There's a line between "demands respect and thought during
| handling" and "reckless/insane". Having a properly ventilated
| workspace, and knowing how to handle dangerous chemicals, I
| would say HF is dangerous but not insane. Borderline insane for
| a hobbyist would be things like generating primary
| explosives/peroxides or toxic gases: cyanides, phosphines,
| hydrogen sulfide, ketene. I worked as a lab chemist for years
| and even with a decent home lab, I would be loathe to do any
| experiments which generates toxic gases in anything greater
| than 100's of mg quantity, because discharging your vent hood
| becomes a big concern. I've heard stories where someone
| accidentally acidified some cyanide (in a hood) and it killed a
| bunch of pigeons on the roof.
|
| HF, eh, that's fume hood and PPE territory. Neutralize with
| calcium hydroxide, evaporate it in a hood to salt, and dispose
| as you would other solid chemical waste. It's just fluorite
| mineral at that point.
| jtwebman wrote:
| I would think we should start exploring other materials and ideas
| if we really want to make accessable to everyone. Not everyone
| would be able to make it find the equipment he has.
| balsam wrote:
| Anybody has a good estimate of how much this kind of home fab can
| cost? I am trying to do this in my own apartment (its going very
| slowly heh) and I estimate it would be USD100000. USD10000 would
| be barely believable if I can get that broken electron microscope
| for the same price he did. ($1000). Seems like the vacuum system
| would be the most expensive part. Another one would be random
| consumables (vacuum grease, oil, chemicals etc). I am trying to
| start with the most trivial part from his videos, which seems to
| be the wirebonder, and thats already like a few hundred minimum.
| rdtwo wrote:
| We had one in our middle school. Somehow they hired some genius
| engineer and he took over the basement and built out the
| electron microscope, radio station and a whole bunch of other
| cool stuff. It's definitely doable and repeatable
| JohnBooty wrote:
| Sam has a video where (among other things) he covers some of
| the ancillary equipment needed to run the electron microscope.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJXio_jpc_Y
|
| He doesn't mention costs directly, but this video covers the
| facts that they had to do some additional plumbing work,
| additional electrical work, there's a big-ass voltage
| transformer he had to acquire, etc.
|
| I also wonder how much the shipping costs were on that machine.
| Unless they were able to pick it up locally with a rented van,
| shipping alone might have exceeded the cost of the unit.
| Shipping pallets of fragile gear with specialized handling
| constraints is not cheap.
|
| My high school turned down a free electron microscope (a
| college was getting rid of it, I think) for reasons such as
| this. Even if you can get the microscope for free there are
| other costs, space requirements, etc.
| kortex wrote:
| Depends tremendously on how good you are at scrounging.
| Assuming you have more time than money and know how to find
| fruitful sources (ebay is meh, local universities, local
| industry, electronics recylers, equipment auctions, and knowing
| a guy are the best ways to get cheap/free gear), you could
| probably do something like the z1 for a few grand.
|
| Sam's lab looks like it cost somewhere north of $10k, but south
| of $50k. But I mean that's like from empty garage with nary a
| multimeter to your name.
| NoImmatureAdHom wrote:
| I also think this is the answer. People are amazingly good at
| finding discarded things that were once high-value and fixing
| them. People are amazingly good at scrapping things that are
| only a little broken, too.
| phkahler wrote:
| Whenever this comes up I like to say it would be nice to reinvent
| small scale chip fab with less toxic materials if possible.
| kortex wrote:
| What are the toxic chemicals used in chip fab? (serious
| question) I have literally all the chemicals mentioned in the
| first chart on this page in my modest maker garage, sans
| arsenic and phosphine; though anyone with certain rat poisons
| would have them.
|
| There doesn't seem anything more toxic than what you would find
| in your run-of-the-mill chemical research lab. One time I got
| to handle a few liters of trimethylsilylcyanide (at work, not
| in my garage lol), _that_ was an exciting day in the lab.
|
| This is but one example of articles I've read talking about how
| "toxic" chip fab is...and I'm like, have you seen the coal
| industry?
|
| https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/news/reevaluating-the-toxic...
|
| > Aside from being caustic, many commonly-used chemicals are
| known human carcinogens. Some examples that can carry high risk
| are toluene, acetone, methylene chloride (DCM), xylene,
| chloroform, and isopropyl alcohol.
|
| You mean paint stripper? Granted, DCM is being phased out, but
| I've worked with gallons of the stuff. Xylene/toluene are in
| spray paint. Acetone and isopropanol are literally under my
| bathroom sink. Acetone is straight-up not a carcinogen, and IPA
| is carcinogenic in the same way bacon and beer are
| carcinogenic. Like, _technically_ yes, but it 's not exactly
| methyl iodide.
|
| > Others--like glycol ethers--may even cause reproductive harm.
|
| You mean windex? Contains ethyl/butyl glycol ether
| (cellosolve).
|
| Sure later in the article they mention mercury, cadmium,
| tellurium, those are pretty yucky. But how many NiCd batteries
| do consumers improperly dispose of every day?
|
| Chip fab is probably no worse than your average autobody
| garage/paint shop combined with a metal plating facility. Yeah
| don't go dumping your effluents in landfills or storm drains,
| but we already have protocols and pipelines for chemical
| hygiene and waste management.
|
| Chip fab actually has the advantage of tons of money to throw
| at proper chemical hygiene, unlike fossil fuel industry with
| razor thin margins.
|
| Can we do something about the mining, fracking, and coal
| burning industries though?
| akireu wrote:
| Recently I've read a 1985 interview with a Soviet IC factory
| worker where phosphine, arsenic, antimony and hydrofluoric
| acid were named. Workers explicitly shut down their managers'
| plans to use pure phosphine. A death caused by arsine
| poisoning was mentioned.
| carapace wrote:
| FWIW, depending on your applications, other modalities might be
| easier: fluidics or even clockwork logic. You'll never be as
| efficient and fast as silicon, of course.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconventional_computing
| alexk307 wrote:
| Absurd. The level of intelligence, perseverance, and money to
| pull this off is astounding.
| dang wrote:
| Past related threads. Others?
|
| _A home-made lithographically-fabricated integrated circuit
| (2018)_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28263714 - Aug
| 2021 (13 comments)
|
| _DIY Silicon: Man Builds Integrated Circuit That 's Similar to
| Intel's 4004 CPU_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28208614
| - Aug 2021 (6 comments)
|
| _Making 100 transistors silicon integrated circuit chips in your
| garage_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28179241 - Aug
| 2021 (8 comments)
|
| _Second IC_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28176255 -
| Aug 2021 (79 comments)
|
| _Homemade IC (2018)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21239145 - Oct 2019 (40
| comments)
|
| _Home Chip Fab_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20657398
| - Aug 2019 (131 comments)
|
| _First integrated circuit_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18118559 - Oct 2018 (1
| comment)
|
| _First IC :)_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16957545 -
| April 2018 (1 comment)
|
| _A home-made lithographically-fabricated integrated circuit_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16955549 - April 2018 (116
| comments)
|
| _First made-at-home integrated circuits using litography_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16953921 - April 2018 (1
| comment)
| giantg2 wrote:
| Looks like someone has a thing for homemade chips :)
|
| These links are really helpful. Maybe I'll try making one
| someday.
| jcun4128 wrote:
| Not directly related but saw Applied Science make an LCD in a
| video, was really interesting seemed more tangible.
| sergiomattei wrote:
| My lord. I take my hat off.
| hishamp wrote:
| Am I stupid for looking for Pringles or lays pack in the
| thumbnail?
| Someone wrote:
| I wonder what kind of chemicals he uses to do all the etching and
| cleaning of silicon surfaces.
|
| Whatever it is, it must require careful handling. And that in his
| parents' garage.
| kortex wrote:
| > Instead of a standard HF etch, a buffered oxide etch of NH4F
| (Ammonium Fluoride) in HF can be used to control the etch rate
| and photoresist lifting. I use approximately 20-30g of 100%
| NH4F per 50mL of HF (stock whink rust remover) and etch time
| for 6000A SiO2 is 20min at 20C. A couple drops of Triton X-100
| nonionic surfactant may be added to the BOE to improve etch
| uniformity, wetting, and ensure consistency through a thicker
| resist. A good BOE recipe can be found here but assumes
| industrial-strength HF.
|
| http://sam.zeloof.xyz/sio2-patterning/
|
| See my other threads. HF is Serious Business, but approachable
| for the hobbyist if you know about chemical hygiene. You can
| buy Whink at the hardware store.
| johnklos wrote:
| This gives me hope.
|
| While everyone says we just need to assume that privacy is dead,
| that we can never truly know or trust our hardware, I disagree.
| This shows it's possible - not all that practical, but possible,
| and practical can come later - to make computer systems
| ourselves.
|
| It's not that unfathomable to make a 100,000 gate device with the
| progression of what he's doing, and that's all it'd take to make
| a real, proper m68k processor capable of running a modern OS and
| any modern software with 100% verifiable source.
| was_a_dev wrote:
| I've followed this project for a while. And while it truly is an
| impressive feat, I just wonder how did he afford all this
| equipment.
|
| I'm 24 and a physics PhD student, and just afforded my first
| soldering iron. I lack the space, let alone the equipment to
| attempt anything close to this.
|
| What a lucky, talented guy!
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> I just wonder how did he afford all this equipment._
|
| Living in the US comes with certain advantages like some of the
| lowest consumer prices in the West including HW equipment being
| dirt cheap on the second hand market plus houses being big
| enough for space for such hobbies along with the biggest take
| home pays yielding some of the highest purchasing power in the
| West, a formula tough to replicate anywhere else.
|
| At least compared to where I live now in Europe, such hobbies
| would definitely be unaffordable for me monetary and real-
| estate wise, which is also a monetary issue at the end of the
| day.
|
| I was looking on an interesting blog about buying certain older
| ThinkPads or older multi-core server chips for $50 used for
| building a cheap home lab, and when I checked, super exited, on
| my local second hand market, such machines or chips were
| fetching north of EUR250 and that was before the chip shortage
| broke the market. That's just one anecdote, but you get the
| point.
| was_a_dev wrote:
| I think living in the US must have some effect.
|
| In the UK the second hand market is non-existent with the
| likes of the US. You can't just pick up hardware off
| Craiglist for next to nothing. It simply doesn't happen
|
| Space is another thing as well. But I'm sure there's plenty
| of Americans whole live more urban without such space as
| well.
|
| My future prospects may be promising, but owning a large
| garage to tinker in, whether electronics or something like
| woodworking seems like an untenable goal.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| We definitely have it easier here in America with regards
| to available space and the price of used equipment, though
| I'd note that this kid's situation isn't typical.
|
| I grew up middle-class (my dad made, statistically, pretty
| much the median household income) and out of the scores of
| kids I knew, perhaps _one_ of them might 've had the
| parental and financial resources to do something like this,
| had he had the skill/intelligence/inclination.
|
| We had a tiny garage, barely enough to fit a small car. Of
| course, there was no room for a car, because we needed to
| keep the yard tools and such in there.
|
| I'm laughing -- trying to imagine my dad's reaction, had I
| asked him if I could build a science lab in there instead.
| "Sorry dad, the lawn mower's got to go somewhere else now"
| lol. He would have told me to go fuck myself.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| I believe everything you're saying!
|
| But also, please understand that what he's accomplished here
| is monetarily out of the reach of your average American as
| well. Especially the average American teenager. The article
| notes that his dad is a very successful engineer, so roughly
| speaking he's almost certainly in the top 5-10%. Most homes
| do not have garages of this size and most garages are not
| climate controlled as this one is.
|
| Additionally, _his dad is an engineer._ I grew up middle
| class, but my dad sold vegetables. Neither of my parents
| could do algebra, much less advanced stuff, so they weren 't
| in a position financially or otherwise to help me start up a
| semiconductor fab in the garage. Not that I would have had
| the smarts or the drive to do that; I'm merely pointing out
| that this kid is at the intersection of talent _and_
| privilege.
|
| In service of their "boy genius" narrative, the article
| glosses over how much parental monetary support this kid has
| had. To pick one example: One of Zeloof's
| best finds was a broken electron microscope that
| cost $250,000 in the early '90s; he bought it for $1,000
| and repaired it.
|
| Very impressive, but thousands more were spent on plumbing,
| repairs of the unit, a giant electrical transformer to power
| the thing, etc. Shipping costs alone may have exceeded the
| cost of the unit, but he doesn't touch on that. You can see
| some of the details in his video here:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJXio_jpc_Y
|
| I remember in the 90's, my school turned down a free electron
| microscope for exactly that reason -- the cost of the unit
| itself is only the tip of the iceberg.
| kkjjkgjjgg wrote:
| So what? Why does it matter if his parents have money and
| are able to help him with knowledge? It is still amazing
| that the universe produced this kid who could do it.
|
| Suppose it would be possible while poor, and only his high
| IQ enabled him to do it. Then it would still be his luck
| for having parents with genes that produced high IQ in
| their kids. So it would still be "privilege".
|
| What's more, his parents don't just happen to be all that,
| they presumably worked for it too, including looking for a
| suitable partner to have kids with.
|
| It might even inspire the one or other person to try to
| earn more money to enable their kids to do great things
| that require a bit of money.
|
| Or what is the reasoning behind privilege theory? If you go
| back in the ancestry of this guy, eventually you'll find
| some colonialist exploiting slaves, and if you go back in
| the ancestry of poor kids who don't create chips in their
| garage, eventually you'll find an exploited human who never
| had a chance to earn money?
|
| Not even mentioning that creating chips in one's garage is
| not the only kind of achievement there is. And some poor
| kids do in fact succeed in life.
|
| Steve Wozniak also was lucky to have a da who was a cutting
| edge engineer. So I guess that makes Wozniak owe all his
| money to society now, because he had such an unfair
| advantage.
| resueman wrote:
| > The article notes that his dad is a very successful
| engineer...
|
| The Wired article? Where does it say that? I only see
| reference to the skeptical engineer consulted by the
| father.
| bradlys wrote:
| He went to CMU - I haven't met someone who comes from a
| modest middle class family who went to CMU. I'm sure they
| exist but I haven't found them and I've met quite a few
| grads.
|
| The guy comes from an affluent family. The privilege is
| obvious from a mile away.
|
| Still cool and all but in no way should anyone read this as
| a "oh, why wasn't I able to do that" or "why aren't more
| kids doing this?!" type of thing. It speaks to how out of
| touch most of HN is that they find this relatable.
| kkjjkgjjgg wrote:
| So would you say it is worth shelling out money to go to
| CMU? What do they teach that others don't?
| rdtwo wrote:
| Why not eBay? Usally things are more expensive but for small
| stuff you pay market price
| was_a_dev wrote:
| eBay in the UK is just a platform for people to sell their
| old hardware near retail price.
|
| Some niches are decent value
|
| Finding a PS1k electron microscope would never happen
|
| Edit:
|
| A quick search across Europen eBay, I could buy a
| used/broken SEM for PS5000 ($6850)
|
| Then I'd need to rent somewhere to operate it
| rdtwo wrote:
| It's market price +10% + shipping. Anything under you
| could buy up and resell for profit and I sometimes do
| rdtwo wrote:
| Space is a huge problem. I would have had the same issue
| as 25 year old.
| astura wrote:
| A 22-year old full time student can't even afford "dirt
| cheap" second hand equipment (nevermind the space to store
| it!) unless:
|
| -They have some sort of windfall
|
| -They have a trust fund or stipend that they receive just for
| existing
|
| -Their parents pay for everything, or, alternatively, their
| parents pay for all of their living expenses so their own
| money is only "fun money."
|
| -They, somehow, have a high paying job. In which case they
| probably won't be going to school full time also. Or they're
| "job" is having a lot of followers on social media.
|
| This isn't a knock on anyone, I'm just trying to explain why
| one young adult student can be excited because they were
| finally able to save up for a soldering iron and another has
| a garage full of expensive experiment to tinker with.
|
| It's pretty much implied this guy's living expenses (or most
| of them) are covered by his parents who also have tons of
| extra space and tolerance for him using it.
| l-lousy wrote:
| Well he's (Sam) very likely still living at home, so
| parents are paying for most things. Plus he has the revenue
| from YouTube
| rdtwo wrote:
| Yeah I mean so what. College room and board is 30-50k I'm
| sure he can get the microscope running for less than that
| was_a_dev wrote:
| My PhD is funded by a research council and my stipend is
| PS12k. After rent, food and bills there is some room.
|
| But it's laughable to think I could repair and run an
| electron microscope. Already mentioned, finding a broken
| microscope for PS1k wouldn't happen here. And you're
| seriously underestimating the resource requirements to
| operate such a machine
| rdtwo wrote:
| If my public middle school could do that in some back
| room closet it can't be that bad.
|
| For reference in us costs and spend your public stipend
| is less than my city spends per person on homeless folks
| and half of minimum wage. I think we're taking different
| scales of money.
|
| These kinds of projects are open to the top 5-10% of
| earners in the us so 15million or so folks could fund
| this but only 1-2 actually do it.
| was_a_dev wrote:
| The whole point of my comments were the price scales are
| out of touch of most people.
|
| Not to detract from the achivement. But there's some
| respect to how the challenges were overcome by the large
| budget
|
| A 22 year old in the top 5% of earns is a very lucky man
| kkjjkgjjgg wrote:
| So find some professor at a university with an electron
| microscope and convince them to let you borrow it some
| times.
| rdtwo wrote:
| I think those days are over. Universitys are super
| corporate now they want to own everything you touch
| kkjjkgjjgg wrote:
| Ok then think of another cool project that doesn't
| require an electron microscope.
| temp8964 wrote:
| I am not sure about his case, but it's not very hard for a
| talent student to get $1k scholarship every month. That's
| lot of money to use if he does not need to pay for his
| living expenses.
| hnthrowaway0315 wrote:
| I think it's easier to get the money if one has funding from
| parents or friends, after all most of this stuffs are dirty
| cheap (under $1K) and he has a whole garage to play around, but
| it's MUCH more difficult to learn the skills described in the
| article!
| was_a_dev wrote:
| As mentioned, getting that equipment would cost an order of
| magnitude higher in my part of the world.
|
| However, there is no doubt the feat pulled off here is
| impressive and insanely difficult to do. I most likely
| couldn't replicate it, but I wouldn't be able to find that
| out.
| Symbiote wrote:
| It's rather inconsiderate to refer to $1K as "dirt cheap"
| when replying to someone who says they can only just afford a
| soldering iron.
| [deleted]
| csdvrx wrote:
| > It's rather inconsiderate to refer to $1K as "dirt cheap"
| when replying to someone who says they can only just afford
| a soldering iron
|
| That's like 10 bucks on amazon? Skip 2 meals, or panhandle
| for 4 hours. Done - soldering iron.
| Symbiote wrote:
| I'd assumed they were in India, but they wrote in another
| comment "My PhD is funded by a research council and my
| stipend is PS12k."
|
| I had forgotten the pathetic level of funding science
| PhDs get in Britain. PS12k is possibly on the low end,
| but a PhD with this funding was on the fourth page of the
| main site listing them [1].
|
| Minimum wage assuming a 40-hour working week is PS19,760
| per year, and after taxes works out to PS17,100. In other
| words, they are probably _already skipping meals_.
|
| For comparison, a PhD student at the University of
| Copenhagen is paid PS47,500 per annum [2], or PS31,000
| after tax (probably more, I think there's a tax discount
| for foreign researchers).
|
| [1] https://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/CMM286/phd-studentship-
| achieve-ne...
|
| [2] https://uniavisen.dk/en/salaries-of-university-of-
| copenhagen...
| was_a_dev wrote:
| It truly is a career driven via passion rather than
| monetary gain
| resueman wrote:
| Well if you choose passion over money, it's not really
| luck anymore when someone has more money than you. An
| engineering undergrad can probably earn more in a summer
| internship than your stipend pays in a year.
| BrissyCoder wrote:
| > in his parents' garage
|
| Yeah, sure thing.
| speed_spread wrote:
| Dad must be pissed about that fluorhydric acid spill eating
| through garage floor's epoxy and concrete.
|
| "LOL, sorry dad!" says the genius but now single-handed kid.
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