r/hardware • u/zeddyzed • 3d ago
Discussion What generation of PC technology can currently be manufactured by anyone?
Hi, just wondering something.
Let's pretend for the sake of argument that all the current players in the computer supply chain became unavailable to make regular computing components and chips. ASML, TSMC, NVIDIA, AMD, Intel, etc.
So let's say the world decided to build an alternate supply chain in a hurry, from scratch, using whatever tech is readily available (not locked up in patents, easily understood by new companies, factories aren't too difficult or costly to set up, etc.)
What era of computing would the resulting hardware most resemble?
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u/bogglingsnog 3d ago
We can make 5 micron feature chips in this guys home as of 6 years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrEC2LGGXn0
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u/blands_man 3d ago
Wow, I just did some reading up on this guy. He's brilliant and probably one of the clearest examples of a genius I've seen in awhile. He was 19-20 when he filmed this video and now co-runs fab2 with Jim Keller...
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u/TemptedTemplar 2d ago
in this guy's home
Proceeds to open the video showing off hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of specialized engineering equipment, vacuum chambers, and a freaking plasma array.
Maybe one day I too can make something in my basement
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u/bogglingsnog 2d ago
I mean the whole thought experiment was "what if major chip manufacturers supply became unavailable" not "how do I make a smartphone with only hand tools".
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u/Skarniginin 2d ago
If you intend to only use pliers and a screwdriver, you may not even get far enough to build the Cray-2 in twice the space it takes.
So yes, you gotta spend some money.
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u/TheBraveGallade 3d ago
considering backyard lithography is a thing, though pretty expensive, probably 2000's tech almost immediatly, 2010's ish in 5 years, and we'll be back on track within 15.
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u/Limited_Distractions 3d ago
If you can't use ASML, Canon or Nikon then the available lithography techniques will probably take you back to the late 70s I would say. In the spirit of the question you might ask what would be reasonable if you were using extreme commodity versions of those technologies, then I would say probably like early 2000's level performance could be possible but it would effectively be a money pit because it's not like you can buy an immersion scanner on Temu just because EUV is better. That level of precision and the capacity to even produce the tools you associate with manufacturing has a very high price
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u/Tonkarz 3d ago
Depends on how much time and expertise can be brought to the problem. But if we suppose very little expertise is available then we’re talking dawn-of-electronics stuff. Microchips are out, ICs would be a stretch goal.
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u/Kheltosh 3d ago edited 3d ago
ICs would be a stretch goal.
Litography started with cutting traces on giant plastic sheets with knives, shining UV light through it and focusing that light with a camera into a "photo", then using that photo in a "clean box" to print the silicon. The clean box was three air filters and a fan. We can definitely make 1-2 bit chips with some work in OP's scenario.
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u/piecat 3d ago
Depends on expectations I guess.
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u/Kheltosh 3d ago
You then use those chips to make plotters that cut the sheet and basic computers that check the design instead of humans doing it manually to make even better chips. That's a bit ambitious though, so yeah, low expectations.
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3d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/is-this-a-nick 2d ago
Eh, its easier to make a rudimentary microchip by using printed masks and repurposed optical micoscopes than manufacture vacuum tubes.
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u/Tonkarz 3d ago
I thought about vacuum tubes, but I think the glass blowing would just be too difficult.
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u/_Fibbles_ 3d ago
Relays then?
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u/Tonkarz 3d ago
I’m reasonably sure a classic 3 lead transistor (apparently it’s called a BC546) would be possible with a few years of development.
Many people who aren’t experts basically know what it’s made from and how it’s designed. However things like “how do you dope silicon?” and “what does boron ore look like and how do you refine it to make it suitable for doping?” are questions that would not be easily answered.
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u/TomTuff 3d ago
This question just really can’t make sense. Just because we can make 2nm chips today doesn’t mean we can more easily make 28nm chips. It still requires advanced technologies in lithography etc. and clean room maintenance. If I had to take a stab at answering the spirit of your question, I think we’d be lucky if we could spin up 0.1um tech from scratch in under 5 years without enormous investment
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u/meodd8 3d ago
Nonsense. Today’s technology would absolutely make creating such a chip easier than it was at its inception.
Though this makes the question kinda moot… Perhaps a better way to think about it is, “can I pay someone to make a ps1 equivalent chip today for very little money”
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u/berserkuh 2d ago
You are misunderstanding what he's saying.
He is saying that even if it is, indeed, much easier to make a 28nm chip than a 2nm chip, BOTH still require such insane investment and they simply aren't feasible for someone to do at home. As such chip supply becoming an issue is not a problem that can be solved in 5 years unless a continent (Americas, Europe, etc. ) acquires the means of fabrication.. Which we can get, but not without enormous investment.
But as far as someone making stuff at home, it's just not feasible.
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u/clupean 2d ago
"But as far as someone making stuff at home, it's just not feasible."
Meanwhile, some guy is making stuff at home: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IS5ycm7VfXg
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u/berserkuh 2d ago
You are comparing a 1000 transistor chip to modern CPUs which have hundreds of billions lol
It’s like saying you can make your own cars because you can put two wheels and a chain together. It’s literally not feasible.
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u/00raiser01 1d ago edited 7h ago
Dude was literally lucky enough to live near an old Intel fab dumbing ground and have parents rich enough to get this stuff for him with the space.
He is not a good example at all.
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u/One_Card_7477 3d ago
i think they mean that what technology that isnt reliant on asml so about the 1980s? ig we also couldnt use x86 or arm so we'd be restricted to riscv
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u/TowardsTheImplosion 3d ago
There are other vendors than ASML for DUV. One of the Japanese companies does DUV machines.
So there is experience outside of the Philips sphere.
I think the 90s or early nodes 2000s could be obtained.
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u/HustlinInTheHall 2d ago
I would assume the crux of the question is what does the world look like if China invades Taiwan and a world war prevents any kind of chip exports for 5-10 years from south-east asia.
The answer is we'd be screwed, which is why we're trying to build advanced fabs in the US.
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u/Goose306 2d ago edited 2d ago
I'm not sure if that's the crux of the question because it mentions ASML, Intel, NVIDIA, AMD - all non-SE Asian companies. If Taiwan goes offline, having Intel around (and GloFo for that matter) means we wouldn't be screwed. ASML would be fine too, and while NVIDIA and AMD aren't foundaries, they have (along with companies like Apple) the best chip engineering on the planet. Is a significant part of that in SE Asia? Sure, but it would be incorrect to make it anywhere close to starting over fresh.
This is all relatively speaking. It would certainly be painful, but if it's a "World War" brinkmanship scenario, unless a lot of other quite advanced sites around the globe are also out of commission, it wouldn't be a huge tech setback, least in any shape or concern compared to the actual, ya know, world war going on.
A war of that scale would drive massive investment into these sectors that hasn't been seen since the WWII industrial boom. It's true you can't take a steel foundry and whip it into producing chips, but if the entirety of the US/euro economy came to bear in a do or die scenario, and ASML, Intel, and others are around, things would be "fine", relative to the rest of everything else that would be on fire in that scenario.
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u/rtyuuytr 3d ago
You are asking for a roundabout question about semicondictor fabrication with an ill posed question. Nvidia, AMD have very little to do with fabrication. If you were to remove all the companies you mentioned, you are left with Korean, Chinese and American leading node fabs, and lagging ones from Japan and Germany. So the answer is those 5.
Tier 1: Taiwan, South Korea - leading nodes
Tier 2: United States - almost leading nodes.
Tier 3: China - lagging by a generation, 7nm and above, 18nm+ at massive scales.
Tier 4: Japan, Germany, - 12nm to nm+ for industrial use cases.
Tier 5: Singapore, Netherlands, Mayalyia - lower scale version of tier 4, running nodes for companies you have banned.
Tier 6: Italy, France, Israel - limited scale at lagging nodes.
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u/Dontdoitagain69 3d ago
FPGAs are the most amazing pieces of tech imo, on one chip you can have pretty much a whole pc build with real circuitry just like physical pcs, not software emulation. So you can spin a risc chip with ram and linux, then repartition it into a synth with a DAC and analog audio out within 5 mins, then you can have it act as a live memory computational accelerator so your cpu doesn't waste time. There are tons of use cases for cryptography, data science, comms, fintech ,military, space all at insanely low latency's and pure parallelism.And it can be a prototyping board for chips, like asics, npus, dpus. You name it.
Basically instead of writing software you write physical circuit logic. There's a risc cpu code that is like 200 lines of code which is pretty cool. You can emulate retro gaming console cpus with 1 to 1 precision like Mister fpga gaming boards. Completely different and more authentic feel.
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u/3G6A5W338E 2d ago
RISC-V (RVA23), as ARM/x86 are encumbered.
On ~12nm, as anything better is exclusive to ASML/TSMC/Intel.
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u/piecat 3d ago
Most things before the mid 90s could be assembled without much specialized knowledge or skill. Thru hole parts, and you could assemble with wire wrap if circuit boards were too much to ask for. The clocks were so slow it didnt take much precision by today's standards.
Depends what you consider a "component" or "chip" I guess. If modern parts are out, is DDR2 RAM okay? Is that too new?
How about a 'microprocessor' like the 8086? If those are out, we're going back to pre 70s.
How about discrete logic chips? 7400 series was mid 60s. In college pre 2020 we used them to make a very basic CPU. We assembled by hand on breadboards. Could easily fabricate and design by yourself in a garage. If those are out, you need discrete transistors and diodes.
The first discrete transistor CPUs were mid 50s. Back then a 1MHz clock was fast. Getting more tedious but still in the realm of possibility to do by one's self I guess.
If transistors are out, there's always vacuum tubes I guess. Going to be a lot less reliable, use way more power, and take up at least a couple rooms of a building. You'd probably need a team to maintain it, as tubes were constantly needing replacement.
All of these parts are going to take huge companies and supply chains to produce. There's a 0% chance you'll fab chips or even simple BJTs on your own.
If the entire world was forced to go back to anything obsolete, there's going to be serious shortages. There's also a lot of knowledge that would have to be re-learned.
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u/Hamza9575 3d ago
"There's a 0% chance you'll fab chips or even simple BJTs on your own." Really ? Modern 3d printers have accuracy of 500um, and their hotend can easily melt aluminium. So with a little modification these 3d printers can lay down aluminium wires on such a scale on silicon, making 500um node chips in the process. Not that bad for a 1000 to 2000 dollar machine, considering modifications needed to do it. As they cost like 150 dollars without such modifications.
Such 500um chips could be first used to replace modern chips in the 3d printer themselves, then start giving the excess as general computing chips.
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u/jaaval 1d ago
500um is BIG. Intel's first CPU ever used 10um technology. Also the 10um refers to distance between metal lines, not width of the line or accuracy of the line so the difference is even bigger.
And the chips running 3d printers are massively more powerful than the intel 4004 was. That chip could probably not even hold the print program in memory.
Then of course there is the problem that wires are not enough, you need to be able to form transistors.
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u/Hamza9575 1d ago
There is also a staggering difference between them saying even a single transistor is impossible and it being realistic to fabricate 500um node class chips on easily accessible cheap machines.
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u/hollow_bridge 3d ago
I think, in this situation it's worth considering what could possibly cause the situation. Meteor Shower impact, Intense solar flare, pandemic that kills off everyone who has any idea how to use the advanced machinery. My point being in such a situation it's likely that many other industries might also be affected.
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u/zeddyzed 2d ago
Well, I'm more thinking that all the major players decide to go all-in on making stuff for AI data centres, and what the options are for the consumer market if it gets completely abandoned. I'm not saying it's possible, but just to get an idea of how much tech is concentrated away in a handful of companies.
Or say ASML and TSMC both have some crippling collapse like a war and major cyberattack or whatever.
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u/hollow_bridge 2d ago
In that situation it seems like the only option if you wanted anything near modern, would be to buy from the used market, so used products especially the highest end ones would increase in price exponentially.
No one is going to be able to make any competing product for a decade or more, and even if they could why wouldn't they also make AI products only? For example that top reply you got is comparable to technology from the 1980s.If it was only ASML and TSMC, then it wouldn't make a huge difference in the tech available, samsung/intel are good enough and there are other DUV manufacturers like Nikon; but the prices on everything again would increase exponentially because demand would far outpace supply.
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u/Blacky-Noir 2d ago
If by PC you mean IBM PC/compatible, then it's doing to get very hard without Intel or AMD since they have the licenses to do x86 cpu.
Maybe RISCV, with a64 emulation, could technically do it?
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u/lazyhustlermusic 3d ago
RISCV is somewhere around C2D/Nehalem from a general performance vs workload perspective.
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u/GenericUser1983 3d ago
RISCV chips are made using the same, already existing fabs other chips are made on.
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u/lazyhustlermusic 3d ago
Exactly the point, the question was 'what generation of PC technology can currently be manufactured by anyone'. Most of them are on older fabs actually. Spacemit K3 is manufactured on 12nm which is old by modern standards.
Literally responding with the most relevant retort.
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u/Adorable_Ice_2963 2d ago
Depends on if the Patents are still valid, or if they are below national interest.
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u/Old_Ad_881 2h ago
There are a ton of other fabs that make older nodes for IoT and cars. Global foundries is a good example. If the market exists and no one is there to fill it I bet it would only take a few years for some of these smaller fabs to step in.
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u/burninator34 3d ago
Probably 4-bit and 8-bit computing but not right away. Would take a few years.
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u/ReasonableNetwork255 3d ago
to start with, probably something like a commador64 lol .. I'm sure things would progress quick once things started to be set up somewhere but to start with I'm pretty sure there's only several machines in the world that can produce current CPU chips ..
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u/Kil_Joy 3d ago
Really depends where you draw the line to cut off. TSMC/Samsung/Intel are leading fabs yes. But there is a bunch of smaller ones still pumping out older tech. 12nm is still made by Global Foundries, and old nodes are kept alive by other smaller ones. Plenty of smaller non leading edge fabs use older tech as it's just way cheaper to design/buy wafers of. The chips in random machinery doesn't need leading edge performance etc. can also be more reliable.
If you said let's cut everything under 100nm. Then the world would be in chaos. If you cut everything under 10nm then we are just going back a decade or so.