diy chips

Sam Zeloof shows the upgraded second iteration of his homemade silicon integrated circuit fabrication process, producing chips with around a thousand transistors in his garage. It is a short overview of what the home fab can now do.

Ben Krasnow of Applied Science builds and operates a simple mass spectrometer, using it to measure potassium isotopes in a salt substitute. He explains the design choices and the theory behind it.

A hobbyist builds a prototype full-frame CCD camera from scratch, with open-source design files and a custom PCB. The video shows the first, still rough prototype.

Ben Krasnow of Applied Science builds a DIY microbalance from an analog panel meter with an optical servo loop. It reaches about 5 micrograms of precision and is used to weigh a single eyelash at around 35 micrograms.

This Old House's Ross Trethewey explains MERV filter ratings and how air filtration works, then shows how to build a localized DIY air filter, including a box fan with multiple filters.

Tech Ingredients shows how to build cheap, high-performance flat-panel speakers using audio exciters on sheet materials such as foam-core board. It explains how distributed-mode speakers work and walks through experiments to find good designs.

Ben Krasnow shows the first image from his home-built scanning electron microscope, after months of work, and walks through how the parts operate together.

Essential Craftsman follows up on his earlier video about a DIY approach to sleep apnea. It centers on forcing nose breathing during sleep with mouth taping and nasal strips, and says to seek medical guidance.

DIY Perks shows how to modify devices that use older USB connectors so they charge and connect over USB Type-C. He solders in a USB-C connector board and works through cases such as dongle-dependent gadgets and a mouse receiver.

A 35C3 talk presenting a proof-of-concept SPI bus hardware implant with capabilities like those alleged in the Bloomberg Supermicro story, plus countermeasures for detecting such modchips.

Jeri Ellsworth shows early steps of making microchips at home: cleaving wafers, removing native oxide, testing dopant type with a hot probe, and loading the furnace.

A DIY demonstration of a fan-and-screen mosquito trap that uses carbonated water as a CO2 attractant. The creator reports catching about 8,000 mosquitoes in two nights.

Branch Education's animated deep dive into ASML's EUV photolithography machine and how it prints nanometer-scale transistors onto chips. It covers the system's components and the process of chip manufacturing.

A Plogue developer shows the custom electronic test rigs built to measure the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis sound chip (YM2612) for the chipsynth MD emulation. It covers the years of testing and reverse engineering needed to reproduce the chip's quirks accurately.

The Thought Emporium builds a homemade multi-electrode array, grows human neurons on it and attempts to take readings. It is the first part of a series aimed at connecting living neurons to a computer.

A two-minute demo of SmartKnob View, an open-source input knob built from a brushless gimbal motor, magnetic encoder and round LCD. Closed-loop torque control gives software-defined detents and end stops.

A short project video in which Greg Raiz turns a 32-inch eInk display into a wireless digital newspaper showing daily front pages. It runs for months on battery, and the code is published on GitHub.

A 38C3 talk on how advanced chips are made, centered on EUV lithography and the global supply chain behind it. It covers technical challenges from raw materials to finished chips and the geopolitical weight of semiconductors.

Tech Ingredients shows how to build flat panel speakers from exciters and foam board, with construction guidelines, measured SPL comparisons and a complete system playing music.

Dwarkesh Patel interviews Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang about whether Nvidia's moat will last. Topics include TPU competition, supply chain bottlenecks, selling AI chips to China and Nvidia's investments.

Chuck Moore, inventor of Forth, presents GreenArrays' 144-core asynchronous chip at Strange Loop 2013. He explains how idle cores draw almost no power and how tight code minimizes energy use.

Part one of Look Mum No Computer's series on buying a whole church pipe organ, covering how it was removed from its home. The series goes on to restoring it and rewiring it for MIDI.

Jeri Ellsworth shows step by step how to make an NMOS transistor at home using a kiln, rust remover, spin-on dopant, eBay wafers and vinyl stickers.

Applied Science builds a replica Apollo DSKY using an electroluminescent driver circuit and screen-printed conductive ink, with source and PCB files published.

A short Google Japan promotional video, in Japanese, for Gboard Double-Sided, a keyboard with no back side that comes in a paper-craft version and a full electronics version. It is a playful April-Fools-style product concept.

Sean Hodgins shows the build of the Arduino-based glitter bomb package-theft trap he made with Mark Rober, covering the electronics and the problems that came up. The code and schematics are on GitHub.

Breaking Taps tries to build semiconductor fabrication capability at home, working through decades of lithography history while chasing one-micrometer features. It documents the equipment, process steps and many setbacks along the way.

DIY Perks builds a realistic artificial sun for dark winters, using a powerful water-cooled LED, a satellite dish reflector for near-parallel rays, and a scattering layer to mimic the blue sky. The video explains the optics behind why most lamps do not look like sunlight and shows the build and its results.

DIY Perks shows how to turn old or smashed TVs and monitors into realistic artificial window lights, using the backlight and Fresnel lens to simulate distant daylight.

DIY Perks builds a webcam mod using a two-way mirror in a box so the camera sits behind the screen image. This allows real eye contact on video calls.

Bill Dally of NVIDIA gives a Hot Chips 2023 keynote on the challenges of building hardware for deep learning. He traces how GPUs have been adapted for machine learning, especially training.

A HOPE09 talk on how modern computer chips are manufactured, from 22nm transistors to ultra-clean fabs and the tricks used to pattern tiny features with light. It frames chipmaking as hacking electrical engineering and physics.

The Thought Emporium's host describes making and taking a DIY gene therapy to treat his own lactose intolerance. It uses an AAV virus to deliver DNA coding for the lactose-digesting enzyme, made with biohacker Gabriel Licina's help.

The first installment of a hobbyist's video diary documenting his build of a giant walking spider-like vehicle. The footage is casual and self-shot, following the early stages of the project.

A DEF CON 21 talk by Adam Laurie and Zac Franken on decapping chips, covering how to remove chip packaging and image the die to read out contents such as ROM.

Branch Education walks through a semiconductor fab and the dozens of steps used to turn silicon wafers into microchips, with 3D animation. It covers lithography, deposition and etching at a high level.

Jim Keller's talk at the 2020 Scaled Machine Learning conference on Moore's Law in the age of AI chips. He compares scalar, vector and GPU-style parallel approaches to computation.

Ben Eater explains how VGA signals work and builds a breadboard circuit that produces correct sync timing so a monitor recognizes the signal. He then builds toward displaying an image from simple logic chips.

CNLohr explains how he made an ESP32 produce valid LoRa packets without a LoRa radio, using aliasing and clever signal tricks. It walks through the RF math and shows how far the signals reach.

A woodworker shows how his table saw accident happened, why it happened and how to avoid a similar one. He describes severe hand lacerations from a blade contact.