we are incredibly overdue for the 3D-printer-ification of silicon chips
snek_case · 16h ago
Don't hold your breath. Chip fabrication is extremely sophisticated. It's basically nanotechnology. Not something that could practically be done at home anytime soon.
__MatrixMan__ · 15h ago
I agree, photolithography at home is a long way out.
I think if we want to distribute the means of computational production, a better approach would be to print oligonucleotide instructions (requires a custom inkjet printer), and use a cell free extract (e. coli would work) to synthesize proteins which are programmed to assemble the computational substrate from nanoparticles.
I think that before that will be the PCB-ification, where you can order online and be batched in with others on a standardized process, for a reasonable price. This is actually starting to become possible, for example via TinyTapeout you can get tiny chips taped out for a few hundred USD.
queuebert · 15h ago
There is a company called Nano Dimension working on something like that. Last I heard their 3d printer wasn't at the consumer level yet, but neither were computers in the early days.
john_minsk · 18h ago
How did you create such amazing animation with svgs? Cool docs
xrd · 16h ago
I was interested in this as well. The site is awesome and beautiful. And, I wished the SVGs were built in a way that (from my limited interaction) is basically just swapping new SVG in for each tick. It's really pretty, but I wished there was a bit more interaction and composability.
mi_lk · 15h ago
Seems a bunch of excalidraw outputs stacked together, no?
faangguyindia · 21h ago
Those who are expert at this, how many TPUs i need to run lets say
Gemini flash 2.5 and pro 2.5 models for 1 user?
mdaniel · 1d ago
Ah, and a psuedo dupe of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44944592 but I'll be straight that I think the current point spread is accurate because I much prefer the repo link to some random .com domain
ForOldHack · 22h ago
Can I get a PCIe card with multiple units and An easy interface? Say 4 TPUs and 8 ram slots? $5,000???
mdaniel · 13h ago
I had approximately the same comment in a thread under a submission about a new CPU <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44201707> and the replies highlighted my understanding of exactly how slow using sticks of RAM versus on-die VRAM. I'd still enjoy trying it, but I have not yet loaded enough of the FPGA ecosystem in my head to know how many hours I am away from watching the bits flow
I think if we want to distribute the means of computational production, a better approach would be to print oligonucleotide instructions (requires a custom inkjet printer), and use a cell free extract (e. coli would work) to synthesize proteins which are programmed to assemble the computational substrate from nanoparticles.
Something along these lines: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1422649112
Gemini flash 2.5 and pro 2.5 models for 1 user?