Even though I'm limited to English, pictures of ASTLab's
robotic chip programmer
completely conveys what an industrious tinkerer
can create with a handful of RC servos, custom fabricated brackets,
a breadboarded circuit, a vacuum pump, and what looks like a PC-based
control system running a VB program. If you've got the time to wait for
the 12MB download, I highly recommend viewing the video of this impressive
device.
I could envision a whole shop of automated workstations like this and one employee running them all. Just setup program to burn and burn a tube. I like. Not trying to disrespect this cool device or anything but the next step would be to make it robotically change out tubes also so you could burn 1000's of chips, nay millions of chips!
Why not just take it to the next next step -- Robots mining the silicon, creating the chips, sticking them in programmers, taking orders on the web, and shipping them to other ROBOTS! :)