[HN Gopher] Z2 - Lithographically fabricated IC in a garage fab
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Z2 - Lithographically fabricated IC in a garage fab
Author : embedding-shape
Score : 322 points
Date : 2025-12-07 03:03 UTC (19 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (sam.zeloof.xyz)
(TXT) w3m dump (sam.zeloof.xyz)
| foobarbecue wrote:
| Love this stuff.
|
| Followed a couple of links and ended up on his brother's page,
| reading about another example of the anti-immigrant insanity
| that's taken hold of this country:
| https://adam.zeloof.xyz/2025/04/01/karim/ . So sad.
| dented42 wrote:
| It's heartbreaking.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| The US concentration camp industry is booming though.
| charcircuit wrote:
| Enforcing the law is not anti-immigramt insanity.
| taneq wrote:
| The enforcement isn't the insanity, the law is.
| oilkillsbirds wrote:
| It's basically an objective fact at this point that
| excessive immigration is really, really bad, just look at
| all the politicians flipping sides on the issue. Look at
| the stats on European countries with the highest
| immigration rates vs those with the lowest (e.g. Poland)
| jjk166 wrote:
| By what metric are you looking at european countries and
| determining Poland is doing the best? If given the choice
| between say Ireland and Poland, which place would you
| prefer to live?
|
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/1541464/europe-
| quality-l...
|
| https://www.visualcapitalist.com/ranked-european-
| countries-w...
| oilkillsbirds wrote:
| Look at RATE of growth (GDP, employment, safety, etc.)
| since immigration started getting bad in places like the
| UK - compare it's growth directly to the UK, or even the
| entire EU
| adrianN wrote:
| I'm no expert, but reducing something as complex as a
| whole country's economic outlook to just the variable
| ,,immigration" seems like an oversimplification to me.
| integralid wrote:
| Two things:
|
| * developed countries obviously develop slower than
| developing ones. Is easier to improve if your economy is
| shit especially if you join a union of more advanced
| countries.
|
| * polish immigration actually skyrocketed recently since
| Russia invaded Ukraine. It didn't harm employment,
| safety, growth rate or anything else yet.
| jjk166 wrote:
| 2025 GDP growth for Poland is projected for 3.2 to 3.8%;
| for Ireland it's projected to be 10 to 11%. Poland's
| unemployment rate is up in 2025 from 2019, Ireland's is
| down. Poland's crime rate remained relatively constant in
| the period from 2018 to 2021 at .71 per 100k while
| Ireland's dropped over the same period from .81 to .44
| per 100k.
| mcdonje wrote:
| Then maybe do something to reduce the causes if it?
| Recently, China has done more to reduce immigration to
| Europe than Europe has.
| pastage wrote:
| The enforcement is the problem if it is not secure legally.
| If you want to handle it with an iron fist like a
| dictatorship sure you can create laws to that effect, but
| there should be some human values on the books that makes
| those laws humane.
| charcircuit wrote:
| Considering practically every concept has the concept of a
| temporary visas, it must not be that insane of a concept.
| perching_aix wrote:
| > Enforcing the law is not anti-immigramt insanity.
|
| Interesting you mention that, a few threads ago you were
| adamant that the EU wanting to enforce their speech laws on
| Twitter was 100% anti-free-speech insanity though.
|
| It would seem that for you the insanity of the sheer fact of
| enforcement (since you clearly weren't talking about the
| character of enforcement) depends on your underlying
| sentiment on the given topic. Is that really intentional on
| your part? Sounds a bit perilous to me reasoning wise, if so.
|
| Or did you simply change your mind since our last discussion?
| charcircuit wrote:
| There is a difference between the US enforcing visas within
| the borders of the country and the EU using their laws to
| affect an American website, allow slurping up data of
| Americans living in America outside of the EU's
| jurisduction. America already went to war to stop Europe
| from ruling over us. The legality of operating every
| jurisdiction is going to be more complicated due to having
| to deal with unreasonable demands of foriegn countries or
| contradicting laws. It's much more complicated than a
| country enforcing who can be within their borders with
| visas where the US has clear jurisdiction. If you were to
| ask me if I think X should respect US law like the DMCA I
| would say they should absolutely be following US law.
| perching_aix wrote:
| So if Twitter complied with the demands such that flagged
| EU-illegal content still remains available to non-EU
| (e.g. US) visitors, thus not removing anything on the
| demands of a foreign jurisdiction, in your eyes it would
| suddenly no longer be a case of "anti-free-speech
| insanity"?
|
| Cause the whole "they're ordering around an American
| company" defense falls apart pretty quickly when said
| American company also operates (read: is accessible from)
| within EU borders, and in general can be used by citizens
| of EU member states (independent of their location).
| teaearlgraycold wrote:
| I'm curious on the details. Isn't marrying a citizen an instant
| path to residency and presumably rather quick way to get
| authorized for work? Are they holding him for having previously
| been in the states on an expired visa?
| foobarbecue wrote:
| I don't know about this particular case, but ICE are grabbing
| people right out of naturalization hearings these days.
| Anything to try and hit that deportation quota.
| webdevver wrote:
| cant wait to see what his latest venture will bring about
|
| https://atomicsemi.com/
|
| allegedly jim keller is one of the investors!
| DAlperin wrote:
| One of the cofounders it seems https://atomicsemi.com/about/
| jimnotgym wrote:
| Does that name make childish Americans giggle in the same way
| as this childish Brit?
| djmips wrote:
| no, we don't have that slang.
| kkkqkqkqkqlqlql wrote:
| Not American, not a Brit here. Care to explain?
| embedding-shape wrote:
| I'm neither either, but Jim Keller is a (the most?)
| legendary microprocessor engineer, and responsible for so
| much in the semiconductor industry. Kind of what Messi is
| for football, but for processors.
| christophilus wrote:
| A semi in British slang is a partially erect penis. I guess
| "atomic semi" would sound like "partially erect micro-penis"
| to a Brit.
| jimnotgym wrote:
| I couldn't decide between micro-penis, and some kind of
| comic-book hulk type appendage. But your description was
| very eloquent, so I'll go with that.
| zipy124 wrote:
| Had no idea he'd started a company, always found his blog posts
| so inspirational. Really hope he succeeds!
| itsthecourier wrote:
| should have added this happened in 2021
| jedbrooke wrote:
| oh man, I remember hearing about this back then and I got
| excited that there had been an update. From what I hear he's
| gone off to college now but will hopefully be back to cooking
| up semiconductors once he graduates
| eco wrote:
| He founded a company with Jim Keller called Atomic Semi since
| then.
| GianFabien wrote:
| Awesome! I wouldn't have thought that it is possible to make ICs
| in a garage. Of course it requires a lot of knowledge, etc. But
| still, not a multi-billion dollar clean room with specialist
| equipment.
| adrian_b wrote:
| You could make in a garage some decent analog integrated
| circuits, e.g. audio amplifiers or operational amplifiers or
| even radio-frequency circuits for not too high frequency
| ranges.
|
| However you cannot make useful digital circuits. For digital
| circuits, the best that you can do is to be content to only
| design them and buy an FPGA for implementing them, instead of
| attempting to manufacture a custom IC.
|
| With the kind of digital circuits that you could make in a
| garage, the most complex thing that you could do would be
| something like a very big table or wall digital clock, made not
| with a single IC like today, but with a few dozen ICs.
|
| Anything more complex than that would need far too many ICs.
| goku12 wrote:
| What are the factors you expect to limit the integration
| scale in a garage fab?
| brennanpeterson wrote:
| Variance, data rate/cost, and lithography.
|
| You can do lithography small but slow and expensive. But
| small means you need a stack, which is even more expensive.
| At small sizes, defectivity/variation are really difficult.
|
| So if you want a paradigmatic shift, you need low cost
| patterning, and the best way I can see is to use clever
| chemistry and a much different design style.
| N_Lens wrote:
| Replicating late 70s chip fab in one's parents' garage.
| Incredible honestly, given that the microprocessor is probably
| the most complex human invention.
| pinewurst wrote:
| (2021)
| mwcz wrote:
| The timing of this share is crazy, since I was just looking
| around a few days ago to see if there were any guides or even
| kits for doing photolithography at home. It's part of my mission
| to demystify modern technology for my kids. I couldn't find
| anything, so this is excellent to see. Far too complex for my
| kids ages, but it might be cool to replicate at least part of
| this amazing project when they're older.
| Joel_Mckay wrote:
| Cyanotype Paper is safe fun for kids to try Sun printing
| silhouettes.
|
| Another project is growing large salt crystals in saturated
| solution.
|
| The Unitech Electric Static Wand Toy off amazon was also
| popular last year (poorly built mini Van de Graaff generator.)
|
| Glow in the dark wall paint and a 5 second strobe light is also
| a classic silhouette demo.
|
| Could also look for linear polarizing sheets, thermochromic
| sheets, and "Magnetic Viewing film".
|
| Some will like this stuff, others only want to stare at a
| screen. =3
| adrianN wrote:
| It's fairly easy to make cyanotype yourself:
| https://simplifier.neocities.org/cyanotype
| mwcz wrote:
| Thank you, those are some awesome ideas. We've tried about
| half of them, but the rest are going straight on the list.
| Much appreciated.
| duped wrote:
| Silk screen printing is probably the easiest way to introduce
| the concepts to kids. There are a lot of maker spaces/artist
| collectives and classes that have the basic tools and resources
| to do it.
| semi-extrinsic wrote:
| Or even gel plate printing, where you get to build multiple
| layers, one of them being a laser printed photo that is used
| as a resist.
| snek_case wrote:
| You could also try to replicate something like the Monster
| 6502: https://monster6502.com/
|
| It's not lithography, but you can build a working processor
| out of small surface mount chips, and you can solder these
| chips with lead-free solder. That seems very achievable for a
| motivated engineer, and probably involves much less toxic
| chemicals?
| bpye wrote:
| There is a great video on creating lithographic masks on Ben
| Krasnow's Applied Science channel -
| https://youtu.be/YAPt_DcWAvw?si=RXaS-GY7czqo_TJZ
|
| The photographic steps are pretty accessible.
| mwcz wrote:
| Wonderful, thank you!
| alted wrote:
| The Hacker Fab [1] project at Carnegie Mellon is creating and
| publishing guides to building simple fab equipment including
| photolithography and a sputtering system. For somewhat more
| complex equipment, I appreciate [2] from the founders of
| InchFab [3].
|
| But maybe the easiest way to do (very low resolution)
| photolithography at home is to use dry film photoresist, which
| is like tape you can stick onto a copper PCB you then expose
| and etch; a cheap roll is ~$20 from eBay/Amazon.
|
| [1] https://docs.hackerfab.org/home [2]
| https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/93835 [3]
| https://www.inchfab.com/
| Simplita wrote:
| This is impressive work. Every time I see hobbyist-scale
| semiconductor projects, it reminds me how much innovation still
| happens outside big labs. Curious how far this approach can
| scale.
| adrian_b wrote:
| The semiconductor device industry and Silicon Valley would have
| never appeared if the early companies working in this field
| would have been controlled by people obsessed about secrecy and
| "IP protection".
|
| During the fifties and the sixties, and even until the early
| seventies, it was common for everyone to publish research
| papers very unlike those that are published today, where the
| concrete information is minimal.
|
| In the early research papers about semiconductor devices and
| integrated circuits, it was normal to give complete recipes,
| including quantities of chemicals, temperatures and times for
| the processing steps and so on. After reading such papers, you
| could reproduce the recipes and make the device described and
| you could measure for yourself to see how true are the claims
| presented in the paper.
|
| That open sharing of information has led to a very quick
| evolution of the semiconductor technologies during the early
| years, until more traditional business-oriented management has
| begun to restrict the information provided to the public.
|
| It is said that such sharing of information still exists in
| China in many fields, and it is the source of their rapid
| progress.
| goku12 wrote:
| > until more traditional business-oriented management has
| begun to restrict the information provided to the public.
|
| Curious to know why you think this cutthroat approach is
| 'traditional'. Is there another historical background to it?
| Every account that I've seen, including the origin story of
| free software (at MIT) and even the rest of your own
| explanation, seem to suggest that such institutionalized
| confiscation and hoarding of knowledge is a recent phenomenon
| - since about the 70s. Am I missing something?
| nhaehnle wrote:
| That's a fair and good interjection. The truth is probably
| that at society scale, _both_ approaches are traditional.
|
| The open sharing approach is traditional for research and
| academia, while the information restricting approach is
| traditional for business-oriented thinking.
|
| So, a young field will typically start out fairly open and
| then get increasingly closed down. The long-term trajectory
| differs by field, and the modern open-source landscape
| shows that there can be a fair bit of oscillation.
|
| We're seeing the same basic shape of story play out in
| generative AI.
| creata wrote:
| > It is said that such sharing of information still exists in
| China in many fields
|
| Where can we read more about this?
| colesantiago wrote:
| Although this is in 2021, it's great to see that Sam Zeloof also
| made Atomic Semi [0].
|
| A display of "just doing things", no permission needed and no
| need for barriers and red tape.
|
| It is another reason why I have huge promise for Substrate [1]
| founded by James Proud (UK native moved to US) another display of
| "just doing things".
|
| However in Europe and the UK, it's "this law allows you to do
| this, this and this", "we've changed the law, here is a massive
| immediate fine", "ban encryption" (this nearly happened), "ban
| maths", "we are the first to regulate and ban this".
|
| It is no wonder the US will continue to be great at building
| things.
|
| [0] https://atomicsemi.com/
|
| [1] https://substrate.com/
| nighthawk454 wrote:
| Of note, Sam's co-founder in Atomic Semi is none other than Jim
| Keller (!)
| LarsDu88 wrote:
| As much as I hate to say it Substrate is probably a fraud
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/Semiconductors/s/jpuI772PJB
|
| If Europe has an overregulation problem, the US may also have a
| grifter problem
| actionfromafar wrote:
| I wonder if the pipeline is fully operational? US Grants ->
| investor -> scam company-> ?????
| LarsDu88 wrote:
| Current US president pardoned Trevor Milton, ceo of fake
| hydrogen car company Nikola.
|
| Right now its ok to be a fraudster so long as you make at
| least a billion dollars doing the fraud.
| iNerdier wrote:
| It's also worth seeing how many US superfund sites are on
| former chip fabs. Intel, AMD, Fairchild etc. all just dumped
| things down the drains.
|
| Regulations can be bad but they can also stop environmental
| disasters from happening.
| goku12 wrote:
| > Regulations can be bad but they can also stop environmental
| disasters from happening.
|
| It makes me wonder how bad the situation is, when you feel
| the need to start your sentence with 'regulations can be
| bad', while corporations fight you for their right to release
| PFAS into your drinking water sources.
| perching_aix wrote:
| Is the "regulation bad" / "Europe bad" angle actually relevant
| here, or did you just take the opportunity to use this thread
| as your soapbox?
| unleaded wrote:
| remember when JLCPCB became popular a few years ago and
| completely flipped hobby electronics upside down? I don't know
| how possible it is but it would be really cool if that happens in
| a few years with semiconductors. it's kind of mad that they've
| dominated our lives since the 1970s but you can only make them if
| you're a large company with millions of dollars (or several
| years, a big garage and lots of equipment as seen here). or tiny
| tapeout.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| This is an absolutely vital development for our computing
| freedom. Billion dollar industrial fabs are single points of
| failure, they can be regulated, subverted, enshittified by
| market forces. We need the ability to make our own hardware at
| home, just like we can make our own freedom respecting software
| at home.
| mepian wrote:
| It's not technologically feasible unless plastic aka flexible
| ICs take off.
| mitthrowaway2 wrote:
| Why?
|
| It seems to me that if there were as much of a customer base
| for custom ICs as there is for PCBs, a fabricator like TSMC
| could easily offer a batch prototyping service on a 28 nm
| node, where you buy just a small slice of a wafer, provided
| you keep to some restrictive design and packaging rules.
| shash wrote:
| They already do offer that - it's called a multi-project
| wafer or MPW. But it's prohibitively expensive on a per-
| chip basis. It's mostly used for prototyping or concept
| proving and not for commercial use.
|
| One problem is, you need to create a photolithography mask
| set for any volume size of fabrication and those aren't
| cheap. But that's far from the _only_ problem with small
| volume.
| wiseepidemic wrote:
| https://developers.google.com/silicon
| buildbot wrote:
| I was like, this seems like a small machine could automate a lot
| of it, now that the number of steps are down to around what ECN2
| film dev requires...
|
| Of course, that's what they are doing it seems!
| https://atomicsemi.com/
| r2ob wrote:
| Awesome!
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| This isn't just awesome, this is world changing. Fabricating our
| own hardware at home is the hardware equivalent of writing our
| own free software at home. This will help ensure our long term
| computing freedom.
| embedding-shape wrote:
| Personally I agree, but the world doesn't seem to. Their first
| project (https://sam.zeloof.xyz/first-ic/) was all the way back
| in 2018, and it doesn't seem like it changed all too much
| (yet), while since I read the first blog post in 2018, I also
| thought we would have reached a much more mature DIY ecosystem
| by now.
|
| Don't get me wrong, I'm excited too about it, and can't wait to
| personally do some experiments as well, although not at the
| same scale. But I'm not sure it's world changing, at least
| until I've actually seen any changes :)
| shash wrote:
| Finicky chemicals and relatively expensive equipment. But
| he's founded a company with Jim Keller. We occasionally see
| them post a photo with zero context, but we do know some
| things. Like they are targeting lots volume stuff and
| basically building fab equipment. But not much more.
| BiraIgnacio wrote:
| It's really amazing, great work! And please keep sharing
| progress and, if you want, how can other people follow on your
| footsteps!
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| It's not my work!
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