How to Build a Microprocessor from Scratch

[Stryder]

Did you check the date on that post?

Anyway, it takes quite a few people to make a microprocessor:

Chemists to grow highly pure silicon 'ingots' which are eventually cut into thin slices.

Skilled technicians to produce photomasks and etch the silicon surface. The thin slices are then chopped up into individual 'chips'.

Electronic engineers to design the logic that will go on the chip (most important people, obviously )

Electrical engineers to understand how to route the logic that the above engineer made, so that at GHz you don't get cross channel interference etc.

Embedded software engineer to code up any subprocessors you may have on your chip

Salesmen to lie about the product

Marketing scum to lie about the product

- get all them in a room with a suitcase full of money and you're good to go!

Kind of reminds me of the film "Shooting Fish". You just left out a brickmaker that makes bricks, for adding some weight to the product after it's finished

 

[merciless146]

dont you get it? it's so simple!

a microprocessor is just a part of a computer that scans through the RAM, SAM, & ROM data routinely. to do so, it uses 1 transistor for each bit, & a basic idea for a transistor is the end of a vacuum plug. capacitors & transistors act like switches to stop & allow the current at different times, which gives you binary code (1 & 0). each bit can turn out a 1 or a 0 & join together for a byte (line of 8 bits). an example is 0=00000000, 1=00000001, 2=00000010, 3=00000011, 4=00000100, 5=00000110, 6=00000111, 7=00001000... (the possible outcomes range from 0 to 255). then, once the byte has been formed, it is assigned a certain place in the memory. if you want to load it up again, just type a program that counts up like in the example above & find a way to switch the current. once it finds the target digit it needs to load, it'll then load back to the microprocessor to be deleted, run, edited, & so forth.

 

[Blindman]

All you have to do is build a Turing machine. Its simple and can be built by a single person. There are plenty of examples of home made Turing machines on the net. The Turing machine can do anything as modern CPU can do, just a little slower.

 

[mac2010]

You guys need to read the book Commodore: A Company on Edge by Brian-Bagnall (just released on 12/15/2010 - can get it through Barns & Noble for $16 bucks). It opens up with Chuck Peddle in his quest of building the 6502 microprocessor with MOS Technologies. It talks about a lot of the techniques they used, how crude they constructed, chemicals used for the finishing process, and other firsts they made & developed to bring chips throug production in the business back in 1975 & 1976 - eye opener and inspiring!

 

[kmguru]

I took the Microprocessor design class in my EE graduate studies. What I can remember, it takes a village to build such a chip just like it takes a lot to do a 300 story skyscraper.

On the other hand, the next generation optical computing can be done on a table top till that gets so complex that you need nanotechnology assembly systems.