>>7552>cost a few million dollars at minimumNot really. There are a few things that would need to be purchased because they can't be done DIY, but the basic process is actually fairly affordable and can be done DIY. Namely, the photolithography, electron sputtering and thermal evaporation, and etching can all be done DIY. The few things that leaves is a wire bonder, furnace, and optionally an electron microscope, but this isn't strictly necessary because his 5 um lithography is large enough to view with standard optical magnification.
I would estimate that his total setup would cost ~$12K at minimum, and double that at most. The few things he does have are decommissioned surplus equipment. Obviously that's not super affordable for a hobbyist, but that's a far cry from several million!
You can read about how everything works here:
http://sam.zeloof.xyz/first-ic/
The process is "relatively" simple all things considered. The thing about producing ICs is that the only real limit is the photolithography stage. Fundamentally, a 5um process is no more complex than a 10nm process.