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- Hacker News
- Too few details to be believably true. Too few details to be a good joke. I don't get it.by dmitrygr
- https://wp.josh.com/2025/10/30/a-billion-digits-of-pi-experi... has some details. Seems plausible?by mkj
- Indeed. Here is another page about the same thing: https://cwandt.com/products/pocket-fiche
"This project is a collaboration with Miles Segal (Gotham Silicon), whose mission is to make microchip fabrication more broadly accessible. Creating ultra high resolution micron-scale imagery is the very first step in this process."
"Those are clips of Miles in the Columbia University Nano-fabrication Facility where he is developing a workflow to make the technology required to build microchips more accessible."
Another mention of the same: https://x.com/JoinEdgeCity/status/1966180823129878656
"Miles Segal is building an ASIC foundry by repurposing vintage nano-fab gear to deliver custom chips in 24–48 hours."
"During the week he was at @EdgeEsmeralda, he focused on making new connections – leaving with new energy, confidence, and momentum from countless serendipitous convos."
So it seems to be one very young dude passionate about revolutionizing semiconductor processing. Whether there is an actual market for a super fast turnaround at 1 um node, and whether he has the experience and the support to pull this off, is somewhat dubious.
But of course wonderful things do sometimes happen. While he was a student, Sam Zeloof became a legend by building a chip fabrication lab in his garage, using surplus and home-made equipment. Now he has a serious team, working on developing mini-fabs: https://fab2.com/ That looks pretty serious.
by generuso - Sounds great as a slogan, but there are no details. For comparison, Intel's 1 um process (Fab 3, 80386-era) required about 4 weeks of processing time, and if pushed, the samples could be processed in as little as two weeks. For a long time they were getting about one working die per 4" wafer.by generuso
- They could employ something similar to https://minimalfab.eu https://minimalfab.com https://www.yokogawa.com/industries/semiconductor/minimal-fa...
These are available since about a decade, and would enable such short turnaround times for single chips.
- Yes, only one day of processing is impossible for any kind of integrated circuit.
One day of processing would be possible only for semi-custom integrated circuits, like gate arrays, which have already been fabricated until a last step that only adds one or two custom metal layers to interconnect the existing components and then separates and packages the devices.
Even with that, one day of processing would be possible only for making a small number of chips, where the metal layers would be patterned without masks, by direct exposure of the photoresist with a laser projector. Making photolithography masks would take more than one day.
by adrian_b