14:59 <freemint> Is it possible to do a 10k-20k gate CPU at home by now?

15:00 <freemint> Is there such a thing as "Moores-Law" for homecmos?

16:20 <SpeedEvil> freemint: To a very limited extent.

16:22 <SpeedEvil> The fundamental problem is that the difficulty of fabricating a 8080 in terms of design has gone way down.

16:22 <SpeedEvil> But nearly all of the other problems remain as difficult as they were.

16:24 <SpeedEvil> It's worth noting that the highest transistor count on a home-grown IC that is generally known about is several, and many diddn't work.

16:25 <SpeedEvil> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFzsyQOTXbM

16:28 <SpeedEvil> Then again, there are also silly options.

16:28 <SpeedEvil> https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32801959970.html

16:28 <SpeedEvil> you can get 30000 transistors for $50

16:35 <freemint> SpeedEvil, thanks for the overview, the alieexpress link did not work me.

16:37 <SpeedEvil> It's just a reel of 3000 3904's for $5

16:39 <SpeedEvil> If you can find old tech machines to do it, then that is another option - but I question if that's meaningfully doing it 'at home'

16:40 <SpeedEvil> A lot of this is probably lack of knowledge. Now it's common knowledge that you can so fine pitch surface mount in a toaster oven. In 1990, this was no less true, but nobody knew it.

17:42 <freemint> SpeedEvil, I am asking for novelity. i am in a OpenSource CPU community. 10k-20k gates is a small as they pushed the design. I wanted to know whether it is possible to make this CPU using an open process.