Those tens of billions of dollars investments baffle me. I'm relatively well-versed in technologies involved as well as their r&d efforts, I understand construction parameters for fabs.. but I still can't understand how can setting up a production process cost such an extraordinary amount of cash.
Also makes me think are chips (any smaller transistor scale, for arbitrary amount of small) out of reach for DIY fabrications and smaller startups?
edit: I did stumble upon few youtubers doing their own chips with vacuum plasma chambers and DIY lithography and whatnots. It strikes me odd that there aren't more of 'hack' attempts at DIY chips. FPGAs and software is all fine and dandy, but this really seems like a fun and great challenge.
Also makes me think are chips (any smaller transistor scale, for arbitrary amount of small) out of reach for DIY fabrications and smaller startups?
edit: I did stumble upon few youtubers doing their own chips with vacuum plasma chambers and DIY lithography and whatnots. It strikes me odd that there aren't more of 'hack' attempts at DIY chips. FPGAs and software is all fine and dandy, but this really seems like a fun and great challenge.