Jim Keller's startup rebrands Atomic Semi as Fab2, moves to Texas
semiconductorschip-fabricationfab2jim-kellerhardware-startups
Abstraction: Startup mass-producing small "fab fab" semiconductor factories
Key points:
- Atomic Semi (founded 2022 by chip architect Jim Keller and DIY-fab pioneer Sam Zeloof) rebranded as Fab2 and moved from California to Texas; the "fab fab" idea = a factory that mass-produces small semiconductor fabs and the tools inside them.
- Builds every tool in-house (pumps, valves, lithography, vacuum chambers) + a browser EDA tool "Studio"; targets small, software-defined fabs that pattern sub-wafer chips and turn prototypes around in hours.
- Uses electron-beam lithography (direct-write, maskless) — slow throughput, so suited to prototyping/low-volume, not high-volume production. Zeloof first proved the concept fabricating ~300nm chips in his parents' garage as a teenager.
- Three sites: 120k sqft Austin HQ, 30k sqft Lockhart "fab fab", original 25k sqft SF "garage fab"; ~84 employees; $15M seed (2023) led by the OpenAI Startup Fund at ~$100M valuation, angels Naval Ravikant, Nat Friedman, Fred Ehrsam.
- Frames a strategic contrast with Tesla/SpaceX's Terafab ($119B single Austin megafab for high-volume AI compute): many small replicable fabs vs. one massive campus as competing answers to expanding US chip capacity.
Connections: Fab2 · Jim Keller · Sam Zeloof · Openai · Terafab · Semiconductor Manufacturing · Electron Beam Lithography · AI Hardware