A disappointing fact of chip fabrication is the minimum bar is high and expensive.
In other fields, a hobbyist can do wood/metalworking or learn programming or build a robot kit. There's an onramp for people to start learning the skills, which makes a huge ecosystem of gradually improving talent.
But in microfabrication, even though it's the only way to make chips, screens, cameras, inkjets, and LEDs, the minimum equipment cost is millions of dollars. Even worse, it takes even professionals months to fine-tune a manufacturing process to make a new thing.
As a result, R&D is much lower than it could be, and most fabrication is limited to circumstances with a high chance of mass production payoff.
In other fields, a hobbyist can do wood/metalworking or learn programming or build a robot kit. There's an onramp for people to start learning the skills, which makes a huge ecosystem of gradually improving talent.
But in microfabrication, even though it's the only way to make chips, screens, cameras, inkjets, and LEDs, the minimum equipment cost is millions of dollars. Even worse, it takes even professionals months to fine-tune a manufacturing process to make a new thing.
As a result, R&D is much lower than it could be, and most fabrication is limited to circumstances with a high chance of mass production payoff.