Watch a Guy Fabricate Functioning Micron-Scale RAM Cells in His Garden Shed

Necessity is the mother of invention, and the RAM crisis is driving people to some pretty creative measures to avoid paying through the nose to upgrade their computer’s memory. Recently, we covered one man’s brave attempts to run a computer without RAM—spoiler, that idea is kind of a non-starter—and now a YouTuber who calls himself Dr Semiconductor has upped the ante by building functioning memory cells himself… in his garden shed. I honestly thought the title of this video was a joke until I started watching, and it’s hard to overstate how wild this is. This isn’t a case of soldering together a few logic gates—this guy has managed to construct a semiconductor fabrication setup in the sort of shed that looks like it should be hosting a rusty lawnmower, a few half-full cans of paint, and a wheelbarrow with a flat tire. In a video released last month, the good doctor catalogued the construction of his DIY cleanroom, and in the follow-up video, he narrates the process of putting together a functioning RAM cell. If you’ve ever wondered how modern chips are fabricated, the video doubles as a pretty great description of the process. The good doctor explains each step as he goes, walking