Homemade CPU

[Lean18]

I know that this is kinda related to off-topic, but as this is CPU and tech related, ill post it here. I was just wondering - CPUs are made of transistors, only difference is that the new ones are 14nm big, there are also normal transistors that are, well.... life size! If we would replace those 14nm transistors with normal size ones, could we actually build a CPU that could """"fit"""" in a normal motherboard ? I know that this is a pretty interesting and dumb question, but i mean, the transistors that are in a CPU and the ones we can buy and actually hook up to something ourselves are basically the same thing, just smaller.

[Lurick]

No, you can't fit millions or billions of large transistors into a motherboard socket.

Also, 14nm is "life size" since that's the size of the transistors.

[Lean18]

1 minute ago, Lurick said:

No, you can't fit millions or billions of large transistors into a motherboard socket.

Also, 14nm is "life size" since that's the size of the transistors.

Well, lets not take a look at those things. By life size, i mean normal size, not 14nm. And i know that you wouldnt be able to put in the socket, cause well, duh. But with somekind of wires going to the actual transistor array. Dont judge me, i said that this is a pretty interesting and a dumb question at the same time.

[ItsTheDuckAgain]

well you can built your own CPU out of transistorsm no big deal honestly. the tricky part is when you want to mount it on sth. like a "normal motherboard". keeping all regulations and form factor thingies aside: I still doubt one could manage it, the commercial "stuff" is just to small.

You can build your own motherboard too though. We did something like that in school once, was fun to be honest. Of course it wasn't capable of much but it is doable. (Ours made some lights blink - yay! ...)

[Theguywhobea]

1 minute ago, DxMoose said:

Well, lets not take a look at those things. By life size, i mean normal size, not 14nm.

14nm, even 10nm is now 'normal' for transistors. And yes you can make a CPU with things like 4mm transistors or something but it would be incredibly rudimentary. If you could build a CPU with large transistors that and fit it in the same size package as 14nm CPU's, why would anyone go through the incredible expense of making them?

[Lean18]

Just now, ItsTheDuckAgain said:

well you can built your own CPU out of transistorsm no big deal honestly. the tricky part is when you want to mount it on sth. like a "normal motherboard". keeping all regulations and form factor thingies aside: I still doubt one could manage it, the commercial "stuff" is just to small.

You can build your own motherboard too though. We did something like that in school once, was fun to be honest. Of course it wasn't capable of much but it is doable. (Ours made some lights blink - yay! ...)

Well, yeah, a 8-bit PC aint nothing complicated to build these days. Back then it was a miracle.

[ItsTheDuckAgain]

Just now, DxMoose said:

Well, yeah, a 8-bit PC aint nothing complicated to build these days. Back then it was a miracle.

so you allready did your research - why ask then? 

[Lean18]

2 minutes ago, Theguywhobea said:

14nm, even 10nm is now 'normal' for transistors. And yes you can make a CPU with things like 4mm transistors or something but it would be incredibly rudimentary. If you could build a CPU with large transistors that and fit it in the same size package as 14nm CPU's, why would anyone go through the incredible expense of making them?

[Lean18]

1 minute ago, ItsTheDuckAgain said:

so you allready did your research - why ask then? 

I just know that theres 8-bit PCs.

[Thermosman]

Has been done

http://www.megaprocessor.com/

[ItsTheDuckAgain]

Just now, DxMoose said:

I just know that theres 8-bit PCs.

so you want to rebuild a "normal" CPU - lets say a 6700 by using normal transistors like the ones on the pic above?

 

I'd say get startet then. Step 1: Buy 1.75B Transistors.

let me know when Step1 is done, we will make Step2 work then...

 

:-)

[ItsTheDuckAgain]

2 minutes ago, Thermosman said:

Has been done

http://www.megaprocessor.com/

with only 42,400 transistors - pathetic

 

op is going for the stars here!

[Lean18]

2 minutes ago, ItsTheDuckAgain said:

so you want to rebuild a "normal" CPU - lets say a 6700 by using normal transistors like the ones on the pic above?

 

I'd say get startet then. Step 1: Buy 1.75B Transistors.

let me know when Step1 is done, we will make Step2 work then...

 

:-)

Well, if not that, atleast a P4 630. That one has a lil bit less transistors. @Thermosman Already posted a link of one, so this topic is basically done.

[Lean18]

2 minutes ago, ItsTheDuckAgain said:

with only 42,400 transistors - pathetic

 

op is going for the stars here!

Its not like i want to build one, i just wanted to know if it would be possible and real.

[Atmos]

Well, no. not in any way.

Let's just do some math shall we?

 

The modern 8700k is a roughly 151mm^2 die, and as intel has said contains roughly 37,500,000 transistors/mm^2

So, we can deduce simply that there's about 5,662,500,000 transistors in an 8700k give or take some million.

 

Now, the "average" size of a transistor that you may use in a project lets say, is about 4.5mmx5.2mm for a typical small transistor, meaning it has a rough volume of 23.4mm^2

 

Multiply that by the amount of transistors and you wind up with 132,502,500,000 mm^2 or roughly enough surface area to cover 18,550 professional soccer/football fields.

 

14nm modern cpus' transistors are on such a smaller scale than the mm of standard transistors, that you cannot compare the two in any kind of reasonable way.

 

>inb4 math is entirely wrong somehow. 

*edit, antipsychotics doing a number on my maths brain, fixed the units at the end there

[BloodyWaters]

It is possible but it would take years of work. 

 

The transistors in a CPU are very small, 10-32 nanometers in size (a silicon atom is about .2 nm). There are billions of these in a CPU chip. If you were to scale these to transistors you could buy at a electronics store, they would fill an entire building. 

 

A homemade CPU would also require an INSANE amount of power because each transistor requires much more than a transistor in a CPU.

 

If you managed to do it you would be left with a massive waste energy and time. 

 

You could design a smaller CPU about the size of a room, but it would still require a lot of power and would be too slow to do anything but basic math. 

[Enderman]

This one doesn't just use the typical large black transistors:

 it still uses chips:

 

 

If you had to make just one of these chips using bare transistors it would look like a mess since each type of gate needs several transistors, and each chip has several gates.

[Lean18]

7 hours ago, BloodyWaters said:

It is possible but it would take years of work. 

 

The transistors in a CPU are very small, 10-32 nanometers in size (a silicon atom is about .2 nm). There are billions of these in a CPU chip. If you were to scale these to transistors you could buy at a electronics store, they would fill an entire building. 

 

A homemade CPU would also require an INSANE amount of power because each transistor requires much more than a transistor in a CPU.

 

If you managed to do it you would be left with a massive waste energy and time. 

 

You could design a smaller CPU about the size of a room, but it would still require a lot of power and would be too slow to do anything but basic math. 

Lets not take those factors into consideration. I mean, would it be possible? Not talking about power, size, heat or anything else, just possible. Its not like i want to build one, but yeah.

[BloodyWaters]

17 hours ago, DxMoose said:

Lets not take those factors into consideration. I mean, would it be possible? Not talking about power, size, heat or anything else, just possible. Its not like i want to build one, but yeah.

It’s technically possible. 

[Mat1926]

On 12/5/2017 at 3:13 PM, Atmos said:

Multiply that by the amount of transistors and you wind up with 132,502,500,000 mm^2 or roughly enough surface area to cover 18,550 professional soccer/football fields.

Thnx for this

 

Now, how many of these do I need Click M3 ?

[Atmos]

On 12/6/2017 at 8:25 AM, Mat1926 said:

Thnx for this

 

Now, how many of these do I need Click M3 ?

Now that's just too much math for me to do

I lied, let's work this out then real quick.

The particular transistor I used, a good middle-ground for small electrical transistors uses roughly 1.8W according to the specifications. this is napkin math, so don't expect exact accuracy.

Now, I'm also no electrical engineer, nor do I want to sit down and study how that math exactly works out., but this is going to be a pretty big set of numbers now.

That psu is capable of supplying 1000W at 12v, so you'd be able to power approximately ~550 typical small electrical transistors off of it at any single point.

So... you'd need around 10,300,000 seasonic ssr-1000td powersupplies. That's around $2,677,900,000 worth of power supplies.

 

Hopefully that helps to put into perspective why computers pre-microtransistors had to be so freakishly large, and were still stupidly under powered compared to what we have today. The scale that modern silicon is on is smaller by so many magnitudes that its nearly impossible to fully wrap your head around.

now... that math is going to be like, stupidly wrong because I have virtually 0 experience working out voltage, watts, and peak power draw or some crap. I'm just waiting for someone to correct it.

 

[Lean18]

On 2017.12.6. at 6:25 PM, Mat1926 said:

Thnx for this

 

Now, how many of these do I need Click M3 ?

18550 soccer fields ? Ehm, lets build one ?

[Lean18]

3 minutes ago, Atmos said:

now... that math is going to be like, stupidly wrong because I have virtually 0 experience working out voltage, watts, and peak power draw or some crap. I'm just waiting for someone to correct it.

It will also depent on the heat of the transistors. I dont know if its the same principle, but more heat = More wasted power = More power needed

 

Im also not an electronics expert, so dont judge me.

[Atmos]

Just now, DxMoose said:

It will also depent on the heat of the transistors. I dont know if its the same principle, but more heat = More wasted power = More power needed

Which means that number would only grow larger, and I was constantly rounding down too, so those freakishly large quantities are on the smaller side of the scale.

[Lean18]

I also have some transformers from a Microwave oven, those can deliver over 2000W on their output. Only problem is that its well, 2000 volts also.