How are integrated circuits fabricated?

Some of those answers really annoy me. They are clearly mocking the person asking the question, whereas I can easily imagine starting to wonder how integrated circuits really work, and how they can be manufactured. I can easily imagine asking "How are integrated circuits fabricated?"

To have a bunch of people laugh and sneer, and point out that it requires $5 Bn manufacturing plants, and nasty chemicals, and levels of purity that make your eyes water, and that there's no way it could be done by someone in their basement - that's just tantamount to mocking genuine intellectual curiosity.

It's not funny, and it's not clever. And most of them didn't actually answer the question. Vile behaviour.

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From this answer: http://electronics.stackexchange.com/a/80473