Manufacturing a processor is not an easy task. Special equipment is required in a highly controlled environment. However, this has not been a problem for Sam Zeloof, a student who has managed to manufacture his second integrated circuit through a lithographic process from the garage of his house.
Zeloof always had a special interest in engineering. In his senior year of high school, in 2018, he created his first chip. It was the Z1, a 175-μm six-transistor test IC made from household elements and without specialty chemicals.
Now, three years later, the young man has managed to perfect his technique enough to launch a new version of his processor. It is the Z2, a 100 transistor chip manufactured with a lithographic process of 10 μm (10,000 nanometers), that is, whose line width is similar to the thickness of a human hair.
Interestingly, the 1971 Intel 4004 had also been manufactured under a 10 μm process, although its number of transistors was raised to 2,300. Although processors currently range between 10 and 5 nanometers , the student's achievement in creating their own chip is magnificent.
Building a processor at home
Credit: Sam Zeloof Processor manufacturing is not without its problems, even for the industry giants. As Zeloof explains on his blog, he made a total of 15 chips (1,500 transistors). Among them one “fully functional” and at least two “mainly functional”. The latter with at least 80% of their functional transistors.
As mentioned at the beginning, manufacturing a processor is not easy. Zeloof had to painstakingly design a 66-step manufacturing process to make the chip. Likewise, he had to prepare a work environment with chemical elements and equipment to achieve the process with the highest possible quality.
According to Zeloof, producing his own processor took about 12 hours of his time. Those who wish to support the creator of the Z1 and Z2 chips can do so through his Patreon page. Perhaps in the near future we will see him working in one of the most important semiconductor companies in the world.
