How about DIY microchips?

[Accu157]

No, I do not think I will be pursuing that type of hobby. Too complex. But, I remember seeing a video posted on here where some guy made a video showing how he makes old fashioned style tubes. I don't know what it was for... but he sold them at a luxurious price. Someone also made their own CPU (well, several have) which is rather impressive:
http://www.homebrewcpu.com/
I'm sure most of you have already seen that website.

Have any of you seen someone make their own microchips... like the kind material science / computer engineering masters students do.... because they can? Like many others of my kind, I have no life so I have a strong interest in strange things like this. :p

[lazy-b]

That was a very interesting Links.........I am very interested on Old Technology......I've even saw in YouTube a home-made computer using a Mechanical Relay.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3wPBcmSb2U

this Relay Computer is much earlier than those Vacuum Tube and standards TTL chips

[spinup]

Relays, hah! We don't need no stinkin' 'lectricity!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KL_wy-CxBP8

It's not a microchip tho. For that, you'll need a toaster oven and some shrinky-dinks:
http://www.diylife.com/2007/12/07/professor-makes-microchip-with-shrinky-dink-and-toaster-oven/

:D

[HFG]

Yes some of us do :) Ok its not a computer but this was an analog chip which is much more difficult.

http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j159/hfguy/Dominic.jpg

[spinup]

Yes some of us do :) Ok its not a computer but this was an analog chip which is much more difficult.OK, I'm curious. :) What is it, and how did you make it?

-Jeff

[HFG]

Nothing fancy. Designed on Cadence and fab'ed on TSMC 0.18um CMOS.

[spinup]

Nothing fancy.Hehe, if you say so. It looks pretty fancy for a DIY project though. :D

What did it cost to get a handful of chips like that fabbed on a MPW run? Around $50K?

-Jeff

[HFG]

I cannot share the information but you can expect to pay $100k/ mm^2 for modern CMOS (fancy 65-45nm stuff).

[spinup]

Yep, that would blow my hobby budget for sure. :)

Speaking of fun with microchips...I just found this gallery of on-chip graffiti: http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/creatures/index.html. Here's one of my favorites, the train "riding" an analog shift register:

http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/creatures/images/train.jpg