Sonsivri

Hello masters,

                   Is it possible to Design and fabricate IC Chip at home using some sort of photo etching or some thing...may be it will not be perfect ie let it consume more power,too big in size and etc.But logically it should work.


proton

Hi,

I recommend to start with single transistors first ;-)

No kidding, forget it it's impossible.

Rgds,

Stef.

Ic fabricating is not as easy process just like eching the PCB.

It is not practical to fabricate IC at home in standard condition

However world says that nothing was impossible
you may waste money to do this impossible thing.

you could try a huge board with thousands of sot-23 transistors  :D

(http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2000/kilby.jpg)          (http://www.kilby.org/images/thechip1958.jpg)

Jack St. Clair Kilby                  Kilby's first chip.



How you think he made the first CI?


niktesla

look into printed transistor method.  It can be done if you can get the right materials.  use silk print method.

That is why they invented FPGAs :)

The bets way to design your own IC is to use FPGA. If you know how to program these things you can do everything.

Example design:
http://www.xilinx.com/appnotes/dspx5dev.htm

More info:
http://www.xilinx.com/
http://www.altera.com/

Yes, i agree with th_sak. for the tools you can use max plus or quartus from altera.

I thank everone here.

But atleast does someone out here has any sort of booklet which show the actual process of making it in a practical way.

Even though there is FPGA,One would be 1000 times happier to make their own IC instead of FPGA.
ofcourse the final output will be of no use but it is just for fun & learning.because everybody uses FPGA but no one (???) may have yet made an IC of their own.

OK Forget making IC's but atleast transistor ?

Home Made Transistor :
(http://img254.imageshack.us/img254/730/homemadetransistorsp0.th.jpg) (http://img254.imageshack.us/my.php?image=homemadetransistorsp0.jpg)

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Andrew_Wylie/homemade.HTM (http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Andrew_Wylie/homemade.HTM)

http://home.earthlink.net/~lenyr/iposc.htm (http://home.earthlink.net/~lenyr/iposc.htm)

http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/print/2155 (http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/print/2155)

proton

start with spartan from xilinx

if you are really interested, try FPGA with flash memory
this is the future.
xilinx, altera, actel are three big names with famous kits like
spartan, cyclone, fusion.

Many old-timers made their first radio using a razor & safety-pin (Foxhole radio)
This is a home-made diode :)

http://bizarrelabs.com/foxhole.htm (http://bizarrelabs.com/foxhole.htm)

Sure you can..
Its just that you should have the appropriate tools and equipments for it.
and most of the time it includes hazardous chemical section as well..

Easier (and maybe cheaper) if you move your home to a lab instead  ;D

Of course you can! I mean, if you threw a couple of beds and a kitchen inside Intel, or Microchip, you could theoretically call their buildings home ;)

What you're suggesting however is probably outside the practical boundaries that most people would be prepared to work with. IC manufacture requires incredibly sterile conditions and you probably aren't going to create the conditions let alone the equipment needed in your average suburban house.

The term IC (Integrated Circuit) is rather generic. It doesn't have to be fabricated with nanotechnology nor contain billions of transistors to be called an IC. There are Hybrid Audio Amplifier modules in the market that suit the term IC and, still, can be done in a private laboratory. Actually, the size will be larger, the count of components bigger and the looks (most probably) not very uniform but still that would be an IC.

hybrid modules circuits mounted in pcb with pins is considered a IC chip.

example:

Spin Stamp Microcontroller parallax

(http://www.parallax.com/Portals/0/Images/Prod/S/SS1-IC-M.jpg)

http://www.parallax.com/Store/Microcontrollers/PropellerTools/tabid/143/ProductID/448/List/1/Default.aspx?SortField=ProductName,ProductName

I totally agree with the few others on this thread that didn't poo-poo!

SURE! You can do ANYTHING!!!

You will probably end up with a gate or two (only need a few transistors) and you might have to "borrow" the photo-reduction lab and Ion-deposition equipment from your local university, but I know of MANY under/graduate level students that are fabbing ICs at the local U...

If you really are interested, and get a little help from a local lab with equipment; you CAN do it!!

Take a look at some of the basics by going back in a patent search to around 1970/75 and search on basic patents filed by TI, for one--lots of good stuff using really basic equipment in the illustrations and disclosures--

might be fun!
Cheers-Tuvo

Not want to say "Printed Circuit Boards" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circuit_board)?

- Design and fabricate "IC Chip" at home: NO.
- Design and fabricate "Printed Circuit Boards" at home: Yes.

I am not agree with that... if we have more "know how", i mean, the tools, the theory behind of IC chip fabrication (enginerring), i suggest,hire, we share the information about all the "stuff",the tools, to make it,
lets say, i have L-EDIT, the EDA, http://www.synopsys.com/, http://vlsitechnology.org/html/ic_software.html , http://intranet-gei.insa-toulouse.fr/~sicard/microwind/index.html, and also, if we "define" making IC chip just the process of designing of IC layout, then the fabrication of our design can done by "real" IC fab, looks at fujitsu, atmel, freescale,TI site, they offers foundry service, where we send our layout, and let them to proceed it.

let says ... PROOVE it ... :D

FYI--

From the Electrical Engineering Department home page at the University of Notre Dame...

"EE 40446, Integrated Circuit Fabrication. In this hands-on lab course, students fabricate their own silicon chips. It is part of the Bits-to-Chips course sequence where students learn about all aspects of IC design and fabrication. In EE 446, students start with a bare silicon wafer and fabricate a CMOS microprocessor that they have designed in previous courses."

Cheers-Tuvo

........... and how exactly does the advanced crystaline physics lab costing millions of French francs at Notre Dame university that the students are able to use for these courses compare with someone in a house AT HOME?

the answer is you can NOT produce a monolithic IC THAT ELECTRICALLY FUNCTIONS at home - if you could, the chip manufacturers would not bother to spend the millions needed just to create the raised floor, pressurized clean air eenvironments and that does not include the equipment once you've got the building and environment set up. You can design an IC but you cannot PRODUCE / manufacture it physically. You need to send the design to a foundry to manufacture.

Hi Proton,

IC is Integrate Circuits, therefore you can put together bunch of already made discrete components to made your own IC. It should be unique and is one of the kind IC or pricewise to be benefical.

Let say if you can put together an IC to detect a men cheat on his wife than you can sell it for hundreds of dollars. The IC would employ small solar pannel (for self power in very low light), perfium sensor, Op-Amp, transistors, resistors, diodes and other stuff. The size would be big since you fabricate at home with only solder iron and perf-board. If you could go to some big company to ask to use their wafer-fab then you will have to study the principal of transistor, diode, resistor and much much more so that you can draw your design in the CAD. There will be many layers of different meterials to be lay on the wafer; each layer will have photoresist on it so that you can wash of what you don't want on the wafer.

Why don't you try to lay out some thing simple first and experiment with it and learn. I know you can do it after some mistakes and learn to improve.

I think the easy way to made (home made) an IC is to put together some already made components to produce a very unique IC; than use epoxy to form the body of your new IC.

Show us the IC when you are done.

Tom

Only one word ..... impossible.
how you build clean level at home ?
how do you buşld cspecial equipment at home ... ?

we build small level company for this about 30 million euro.

if you fabricate an ic at home pls call me .

good luck.

Do not measure others with your yard arm.

If you live in pig sty, well yes impossible.
if you cannot afford the equipment (most can't) then yes impossible.

BUT!
if you are rich enough, and dedicated enough yes you definitely can!

heck, people cannot fly 150 years ago! and now we have satellites!

Who are you to say whether others can or cannot do in their own home?

http://www.semiconductor.net/article/CA338201.html
http://www.electronics.ca/publications/products/Printed-and-Thin-Film-Transistors-and-Memory.html

I think - Design digital IC at home - it is no problem, but fabricate this IC only at China :)

you can use the FPGA for DFT (Design For Test).

If you invent a silicon 3d printer or some special semiconductor ink printer for making transistors it will be possible!

sure it's possible. jeri ellsworth did it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdcKwOo7dmM

Hi proton,

Do not let any one to tell you "YOU CAN NOT DO".
Start from sand, go trought to silicon.
By the time develop some hardware for silicon process and bonding.
But do not forget to provide dust free environment. (Use grandma vacuum cleaner)
And try to fit your desing in a JEDEC case please.

Never give up, you can produce a 500k gate ASIC within only 10 years for prototyping.
Mass production will last a little bit longer, say 30 years :)

Best Regards.

With the current knowledge, I would be surprised if it took a determined (and well funded) person more than 2 years to make his own IC at home.
After all, all the technique has been developed, so you only have to copy the procedure.

Monkeys might need another millenia or ten.

I was scratching my head trying to remember the name of that "engineering girl who made her own transistor". Yes indeed, Jeri Ellsworth.

She's not an engineer - she's a hacker

With the info from the net, you no longer need to have engineering degree to make things,
a "hacker" can and will surpass the purist engineers.

Jeri is admirable, if not for her engineering/hacking skill, it will be for her business sense.