YouTube creator Dr. Semiconductor has conducted a novel experiment to solve the ongoing RAM pricing and availability crisis: Building his own. This isn't just resoldering RAM chips onto a different PCB or applying a new Extreme Memory Profile (XMP). This is building memory cells from the ground up: from silicon wafers to functional memory, Tom's Hardware reports.
The process is not budget-friendly, but if he can put a few of these cells into a stick or two, I might be interested in buying it at the right price.
The experiment comes after the AI data center hype produced a global memory shortage. Manufacturers have pivoted to producing high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips for hyperscaler corporations, leaving gamers and enthusiasts stuck with hugely inflated prices. New fabrication capacity isn't coming online until 2027 at the earliest, so people have switched to DDR4 or used mismatched sticks. Now it seems some are even trying to manufacture their own RAM.
Dr. Semiconductor's approach is extreme, but it led him to build a class 100 semiconductor clean room in his backyard shed. The equipment and facility itself are almost more impressive than the process of building the memory. Almost.
The process begins by separating a couple of small silicon chips from a larger sheet, then coating them with a layer of oxide in a high-temperature furnace. The layer is a mere 330nm thick, highlighting the incredible precision required for such a fabrication process and the utter ridiculousness of attempting (and achieving!) this inside a home shed.
Dr. Semiconductor then builds a layer of adhesive materials and photo-resistant film on top of the oxide layer. He uses UV lighting to project a design onto the new surface, with a developer solution, then washes away the areas hit by the light, creating channels within the materials. Then there's more etching, doping of the silicon to make it conductive, and thermal annealing, which drives the doping agent deeper into the silicon.
Ultimately, the good doctor uses a miniature stencil to spray the chips with aluminum, leaving fully layered chips ready for testing. The cells were measured at 12 pF capacitance and are now ready to be used in the next project: making enough cells to hook them up to a PC to act as real DRAM. That's a project for another day, but as the memory shortage rolls on, unique solutions to the problem are increasingly attractive, even if they require building your own clean room.