Jim Keller's startup is building a factory to mass-produce small chip fabs

WithinReason•about 4 hours ago

That's the one that Sam Zeloof is working on, "having lithographically microfabricated various chips in his garage as early as the age of 17"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Zeloof

embedding-shape•about 3 hours ago

Featured on the frontpage four years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30043719 (22-year-old builds chips in his parents’ garage | 525 | Jan 23, 2022 | 347 comments)

I still recall being amazed reading and seeing it for the first time, and I have been eagerly awaiting to see what he been up to since starting Atomic Semi.

ripe•25 minutes ago

I would've liked to read more about what they're doing, but their website fab2.com is unhelpful. Very little info, presented in pointless swirling animations that hijack your scroll action.

sq_•about 4 hours ago

The article mentions, but doesn't explicitly state, that they're going to be using electron beam lithography. Makes sense for their low volume and/or prototype fab goal, but I'm curious how well that would work for prototyping to fab at high volume with the likes of TSMC or Intel.

I would assume that re-targeting a design to a different fab's process would change enough about it that you might as well just do verification in simulation rather than sidetrack through Fab2.

dinfinity•28 minutes ago

I think this might make a lot of sense in modern warfare scenarios: We're seeing in Ukraine that being able to produce weapons such as drones in very small production facilities using 3D printers and 'simple' technology makes it very hard for an adversary to shut down said production.

The more components can be produced in such a way, the better. Chips currently are quite an exception to that.

ipsum2•about 3 hours ago

I don't get it. How is Jim Keller running a brand new, hard tech startup while being CEO of Tenstorrent at the same time?

CoastalCoder•18 minutes ago

Chuck Norris will pass his torch to Jim Keller.

Jim won't have a say in the matter.

bhewes•about 3 hours ago

There are rumors Qualcomm is going to buy Tenstorrent.

williadc•about 2 hours ago

Maybe not: https://finance.yahoo.com/technology/ai/articles/qualcomms-t...

wyre•36 minutes ago

So Elon Musk can be the CEO of multiple companies but Jim Keller can't be CEO of two quickly growing startups?

tangenter•32 minutes ago

I thought Elon runs off of Special K and hardcore Mephisto drops?

d_silin•about 4 hours ago

One of the most interesting technologies that is not about LLMs/AIs.

syntaxing•about 1 hour ago

This is a great idea and hope it works out, especially on shoring chips back here in the states. That being said, their website is absolutely atrocious. One of the very few sites I got motion sickness from scrolling.

[1] https://fab2.com/

eikenberry•about 4 hours ago

Is this an ASML competitor?

re-thc•about 4 hours ago

No, quoting the article:

> only really suits prototyping and low-volume runs rather than high-volume production at commercial foundries

fernie•about 3 hours ago

Aww, I really wanted a cottage industry of chip manufacturing

wyre•34 minutes ago

I'm sorry but isn't cottage industry synonymous with small-scale manufacturing? It seems like fab2 is the definition of cottage industry chip manugacturing.

holoduke•about 3 hours ago

How could would ut be that your company or university or even at home has its own chip machine. Design your 5b transistor chip and bake and process it the same day. Doable I would say.

vatsachak•about 4 hours ago

Great! Hopefully we can get 10 year behind technology from small fabs. There's so much you can do with a laptop from 2016

pulse7•about 3 hours ago

With electron-beam lithography you can build transistors with gate lengths down to 1 to 3 nanometers.

phonon•about 2 hours ago

Global Foundries has lots of fabs with 10 year old+ processes....

Jim Keller's startup is building a factory to mass-produce small chip fabs

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