Necessity is the mother of invention, and the RAM crisis is leading people to take some pretty creative measures to avoid paying too much to upgrade their computer memory. Recently, we covered orOne man’s brave attempts to run a computer without RAM—spoiler, that idea has no beginning—and now a YouTuber who calls himself Dr. Semiconductor He’s upped the ante by building functional memory cells himself… in his garden shed.
I honestly thought the title of this video was a joke until I started watching it, and it’s hard to overstate how wild it is. This isn’t a case of soldering up some logic gates: this guy has managed to build a semiconductor manufacturing facility in the kind of shed that looks like it houses a rusty lawn mower, some half-full paint cans, and a wheelbarrow with a flat tire. In a video released last month, the good doctor cataloged the construction of his diy clean roomand in the follow-up video, he narrates the process of assembling a working RAM cell.
If you’ve ever wondered how modern chips are made, the video also serves as an excellent overview of the process. The good doctor explains each step as he goes, walking us through the deposition of the initial oxide layer on the silicon wafer, then the processes of photolithography, etching, thin film deposition and testing. These processes use some pretty nasty chemicals to clean chips and remove unnecessary material. And if you’re familiar with chip making and wondering if it uses hydrofluoric acid and piranha solution: Hell yes, it does. (No sign of the delight that is chlorine trifluoride, (although maybe because getting it puts you on all kinds of watch lists).
The video also provides an excellent explanation of how RAM cells actually work. One thing you may not know (I certainly didn’t until recently) is that current constantly drains from the RAM cells, which means they need constant recharging. Dr. Semiconductor’s cells need to be recharged every two milliseconds, but as he explains, even commercial DRAM needs to be recharged every 64 milliseconds or so. This is why RAM is volatile and does not retain data when you turn off the computer. (Aside: IT YouTuber Laurie Wired recently did an excellent video about why RAM works like this).
Anyway, at the end of the video, Dr Semiconductor has some fully functioning RAM cells, each of which is on the order of microns in size. And again: this is crazy. There is other channels on YouTube, where people have successfully created home photolithography setups, but actually producing functional RAM with micron-scale cells is a whole different level. Of course, it’s not like the Doctor created several gigabytes of RAM; This video is basically a proof of concept, something its creator readily admits. It looks like he’s not done yet, though: He ends the video by explaining his plans to “take these cells, put them together… and plug them into a PC.”
If you had asked me yesterday if this was even remotely possible, my answer would have been “haha, no.” But now? I mean, I wouldn’t bet against him.
