Hackaday Newsletter 0x79

2018: The Beginning of the DIY Silicon Age [Hackaday] What Does ‘Crypto’ Actually Mean? [Read article now »]( Making Chips By [Elliot Williams]( There's no doubt that we live in the best of times for DIY hacker electronics. Our ancestors had to photocopy (or trace!) graphics from a magazine, wrangle with chemistry (gasp!), and drill their own holes to make a PCB. Nowadays, we just clone the repo and e-mail the Gerbers off to the factory, order some parts on eBay, and twiddle our thumbs while waiting for shipping. Lost is some of the craft of home-building and it's a bit slower, but the gain of convenience and price is undeniable. And the end result of PCB design and fabrication being so cheap is that "normal" people are making more custom projects, more openly than ever before. Woot! With the PCB conquered, what's the next frontier? If you read Hackaday last week, you'd think it was DIY silicon. In the "all I need is a bag of sand and some Hexamethyldisilazane" category, [Sam Zeloof] is running way out in front. He announced on Twitter that [he has succeeded in DIYing a PMOS differential amplifier IC](. Standing on the shoulders of Hackaday superfriends like [Ben Krasnow] and [Jeri Ellsworth], he appears to have actually pulled off a simple, but non-trivial, IC in his garage. We're speechless! Kudos. Attacking the problem from the other side, the [Itsy-Chipsy project]( aims to pull off what Sparkfun and OSH Park did for PCBs, only in silicon. The idea is that if a wafer can be split among many different projects, everyone can have a tiny chunk made for "reasonable" prices. At the moment, MOSIS makes this kind of service available to universities for tens of thousands of dollars. Itsy-Chipsty wants to get the price down to $100 or so for 2 mm x 2 mm. We can't wait. This is a big deal, folks. Opening up the world of custom silicon to the individual hacker creates amazing opportunities. It's way too early to call 2018 the "Year of Custom Silicon", but we're calling this the beginning of the future. Let's see where the next five years take us. You read it here first. Robots Rule We just concluded the first round of the [2018 Hackaday Prize]( and we're on to the next one. In the next few weeks, we're encouraging you to [build robot parts]( specifically, modular components that help us all build our own robot overlords. Maybe it's a motor controller, a limb design, or particularly useful sensor module. A good robot is more than the sum of its parts, but the easier we can make summing those parts up, the better. This week, [the Hack Chat is going to be all about robotics too](. [Ryan Walker] has worked on everything from prosthetics to industrial automation, and he'll be bringing his considerable experience and passion for controlling and actuating robots along with him. If you are working on a 'bot of your own, you won't want to miss it! From The Blog [Teardown: LED Bulb Yields Tiny UPS]( By [Tom Nardi]( [Tom] tears apart a cheap battery-backed lightbulb. What he finds inside could actually be useful! [Read more »]( [A Buyer’s Guide to Lathe Options]( By [Quinn Dunki]( If you're outfitting a machine shop, a lathe should be near the top of your list. [Quinn] walks you through what you need to consider before buying. [Read more »]( [eTextile Spring Break]( By [Lara Grant]( [Lara] goes to e-textile camp and reports back on signal blocking, audio generation, and RFID hijinks. If you thought e-textiles were just blinking LEDs... [Read more »]( If You Missed It [Spoofing Cell Networks with a USB to VGA Adapter]( [Home Made 5-Axis CNC Head Is A Project To Watch]( [Assemble Your Own Modular Li-Ion Batteries]( [The Simplest Possible DIY Ultrasonic Levitator]( [Turn Failed Prints into Office Fun with a Paper Airplane Maker]( [Hackaday]( NEVER MISS A HACK [Share]( [Share]( [Share]( [Share]( [Terms of Use]( [Privacy Policy]( [Hackaday.io]( [Hackaday.com]( This email was sent to {EMAIL} [why did I get this?]( [unsubscribe from this list]( [update subscription preferences]( SupplyFrame, Inc · 61 South Fair Oaks Avenue · Suite 200 · Pasadena, CA 91105 · USA