[GuB-42]

FPGA dev boards are cheap nowadays, and you can start coding in a hardware definition language with a simulator. The ChatGPT answer of doing a 1-bit full adder as "hello world" makes sense.

You are obviously not going to etch silicon at home, but the design part is rather accessible as far as hardware goes.

[aeonik]

You can absolutely etch silicon at home. Processes like wet etching (KOH, HF), reactive ion etching (RIE), laser ablation, and even electron beam lithography using repurposed CRTs are all viable at the DIY scale.

They're not used in high-volume manufacturing (you’re not replacing ASML), but they’re solid for prototyping, research, and niche builds.

Just don’t underestimate the safety aspect—some of these chemicals (like HF) are genuinely nasty, and DIY high voltage setups can bite hard.

You're not hitting nanometer nodes, but for MEMS, sensors, and basic ICs, it’s totally within reach if you know what you’re doing.

[spwa4]

> You are obviously not going to etch silicon at home

No? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IS5ycm7VfXg

[spwa4]

It's actually pretty scary how far this guy got: 10nm. Makes you wonder if something as powerful as an intel N100, famously a current 10nm chip + DDR4 memory, could be made like this. That would support quite a bit in terms of AI already, even if transformers are probably a bit much too ask.