Last Updated: Oct. 27, 2024
Imagine a chip fab in every city - that’s exactly what the Hacker Fab Project is set out to do.
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We’re developing an open-source blueprint for building a chip fab for <$10k, capable of producing 1,000 transistor chips at a 10μm process.
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The Goal? Make the process so replicable that anyone—engineer, student, or hobbyist—can build a Hacker Fab in their school or organization, enabling communities to join in on advancing silicon.
At 17, Sam Zeloof built a functional chip fab in his garage, proving that chip fabrication could happen far outside of costly, high-tech facilities.
When he later joined Carnegie Mellon University, Sam and two close friends launched Hacker Fab—a multi-school global initiative to make chip fabrication accessible.
With $100k and two years of student-led work, the CMU team demonstrated that functioning NMOS chips could be made without massive budgets.
After graduating, Sam founded Atomic Semi to bring DIY chip fabrication to a commercial scale, enhancing accessibility and affordability for broader industry use.
Sam Zeloof in his Home Chip Fab
Waterloo students, with experience from internships at Atomic Semi and other semiconductor companies, connected with Hacker Fab’s origins at CMU and saw an opportunity to expand on the initiative.
Building on CMU’s foundational work and applying our own hands-on expertise in the semiconductor space — Waterloo Hacker Fab was born.
waterloo students scope out cmu’s chip fab
waterloo students scope out cmu’s chip fab
exactly 4 months later — ~$16k in funding, micron scale patterning, 200 students in pipeline
exactly 4 months later — ~$16k in funding, micron scale patterning, 200 students in pipeline
Silicon drives the digital world, yet production remains locked behind $100M+ facilities and limited expertise.