11 videos · 6 hr 43 minIndistinguishable From Magic
A guided trip down the chip stack. It starts with what a transistor is and with hobbyists who make them at home, goes through the modern fab and EUV lithography, and ends with the industry and the argument over whether Moore's Law is finished. The centerpiece is the HOPE talk HN has called the best introduction to chipmaking for more than ten years.
Play all on YouTube- 111:23
How a transistor works
Ben Eater · Picked by 4 · 2020–2023Ben Eater's eleven-minute NPN explainer comes first because HN treats it as the starting point that leads on to logic gates and CPUs.
- 28:05
Homebrew NMOS Transistor Step by Step - So Easy Even Jeri Can Do It
Jeri Ellsworth · Picked by 3 · 2010–2023Jeri Ellsworth makes an NMOS transistor with a kiln, rust remover and eBay wafers, which shows each fab step at kitchen scale before the industrial version.
- 35:46
"Z2" - Upgraded Homemade Silicon Chips
Sam Zeloof · Picked by 4 · 2021–2026Five minutes on Sam Zeloof's garage fab making chips with around a thousand transistors; HN cites it as the proof that hobby chipmaking is real.
- 427:48
How are Microchips Made? 🖥️🛠️ CPU Manufacturing Process Steps
Branch Education · Picked by 2 · 2024–2025Branch Education's animated tour of deposition, lithography and etching gives you a map of the real fab before the long talk.
- 5
1:01:20Indistinguishable From Magic: Manufacturing Modern Computer Chips
Andor Gafotas · Picked by 19 · 2016–2024The centerpiece, with 19 HN recommenders: a HOPE talk that treats 22nm chipmaking as physics hacking, and the one HN keeps wishing someone would update.
- 6
17:20The Extreme Engineering of ASML’s EUV Light Source
Asianometry · Picked by 11 · 2022–2025Asianometry zooms in on the hardest part, where lasers hit falling tin droplets twice to make 13.5nm light, and it is the link HN reaches for whenever ASML comes up.
- 7
55:00The Closest Thing We Have to Alien Technology
Veritasium · Picked by 5 · 2026Veritasium's 55-minute look at the whole EUV machine, from mirrors to supply chain, which one HN commenter said turned deep magic into something understandable.
- 8
20:0814nm and 7nm are NOT what you think it is - Visiting Tescan Part 3/3
der8auer · Picked by 1 · 2020–2021A short reality check: der8auer puts Intel 14nm and AMD 7nm under an electron microscope and shows that node names are marketing labels.
- 9
1:31:41Morris Chang, in conversation with Jen-Hsun Huang
Computer History Museum · Picked by 3 · 2012–2023After the machines come the people: TSMC's founder explains how he invented the pure-play foundry model, interviewed in 2007 by the Nvidia CEO who became his biggest customer.
- 10
40:0238C3 - From Silicon to Sovereignty: How Advanced Chips are Redefining Global Dominance
media.ccc.de · Picked by 5 · 2025–2026A 38C3 talk that pulls the technical story into geopolitics, about why EUV and its supply chain now matter to governments.
- 11
1:04:53Jim Keller: Moore’s Law is Not Dead
UC Berkeley EECS · Picked by 7 · 2019–2025The closer is the talk HN cites in every Moore's Law argument, where Keller lays out the overlapping curves he thinks keep scaling going.