“Now we know that it’s possible to make really good transistors with impure chemicals, no cleanroom, and homemade equipment.”
A college student built a 100-transistor chip in his garage on the same 10 micron process as Intel’s first processor. He has now put 1,200 transistors on one piece of silicon. The 4004 had 2,200. The chip shortage is about scale and money, not secret knowledge.