we are incredibly overdue for the 3D-printer-ification of silicon chips

snek_case 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

Don't hold your breath. Chip fabrication is extremely sophisticated. It's basically nanotechnology. Not something that could practically be done at home anytime soon.

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__MatrixMan__ 3 days ago | parent [-]

I agree, photolithography at home is a long way out.

I think if we want to distribute the means of computational production, a better approach would be to print oligonucleotide instructions (requires a custom inkjet printer), and use a cell free extract (e. coli would work) to synthesize proteins which are programmed to assemble the computational substrate from nanoparticles.

Something along these lines: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1422649112

	▲	mptest 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		That being the better approach says volumes about the complexity of lithography. For anyone reading this, read Chip Wars by Chris Miller. The Lithography sub-story that threads through is amazing and fascinating and the whole book is incredible besides. For those who think Ai Is a bubble and longshot, look up how crazy of a bet EUV (extreme ultraviolet) lithography was.

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jononor 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I think that before that will be the PCB-ification, where you can order online and be batched in with others on a standardized process, for a reasonable price. This is actually starting to become possible, for example via TinyTapeout you can get tiny chips taped out for a few hundred USD.

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queuebert 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

There is a company called Nano Dimension working on something like that. Last I heard their 3d printer wasn't at the consumer level yet, but neither were computers in the early days.

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LargoLasskhyfv 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

That exists, sort of. Just not at an affordable level for home use.

But still worlds apart from current semiconductor fabrication with billions of necessary investments.

https://www.yokogawa.com/industries/semiconductor/minimal-fa...