Hi So, considering that at the end of this month I'll have a new, even bigger apartment than currently with a garage and a fire place included (for 150 bucks less than I pay currently per month!!!), I'll have enough space to start working on our mini clean room glove box design, for manufacturing chips. I agree, I've checked online. I did find some inexpensive electric desktop furnaces, but they're all more expensive than 300 Euros. However, assuming that I get one of those microLED displays for building a maskless lithography system for those benches, it should become possible for me to provide such a service at home. Considering that such a glove box design has much less air to clean, it might actually be possible to achieve a cleanliness level inside there for achieving ever smaller feature sizes, assuming we can come up with a stepping capable exposure unit, or with a fixed one, which has a higher amount of pixels and a suitable aperture.
Cheers -lev
On Friday, April 2, 2021 6:51:26 PM WEST Martin Geisse wrote:
Hello Ferenc,
thank you for the quick reply.
LS50U as a service is definitely something I would pay for, though obviously less than for LS1U. Since it is a toy anyway, reliable performance and SPICE models are less important that having a hobbyist-friendly packaging (preferably DIP) included in the service.
Greetings, Martin
On Fri, Apr 2, 2021 at 5:53 PM Ferenc Éger eegerferenc@gmail.com wrote:
Hello Martin, hello list,
Yes, we aim to offer Libresilicon as a manufacturing service. Originally, our plan is two-fold:
LS1U is the "real" technology offered for manufacturing. It has 1um MFS, provides full poly-gate CMOS and bipolar primitive components, and comes with fully characterized SPICE models. This is the node intended for prototyping and making working devices. However, its fabrication and quality assurance requires an industrial-scale cleanroom facility, so it is offered primarily as a service.
Parallel, LS50U is being worked on as a "toy": it is a 50-100um MFS, metal-gate PMOS-only technology with no poly-Si layer and only a single metal layer. Its primary goal is to serve as an educational tool or "attention-catcher" for the project. Design reproducibility and functionality is not implied or guaranteed, it is not intended for design prototyping at all.
Please note that LS50U is not a subset of LS1U, no portability between them is intended.
@David: What about providing LS50U also as a service (in addition to the kit)? As a forerunner of LS1U manufacturing service?
Regards,
Ferenc On 02/04/2021 14:39, Martin Geisse wrote:
Hi,
- LS50U/MLL: It is proposed to make a maskless exposure unit based on
JBD's uLED panel targeted at 50-100um MFS, and make it available bundled into a "DIY Microchip Fabrication Kit" containing everything needed for
a basic process. Details discussed so far:
...
Just another two considerations: Our target audience with this kit is the unit-radius citizen without significant financial resources (hence
the 300Eur target price), so the following needs to be addressed:
Is providing an "NDA-less fab" service using these kits within scope, or would anyone on this list consider providing such a service? I'm asking this for two reasons. First, I'm skeptical about a 300€ price target for such a kit, but a fab service would map that cost to a larger number of users. Second, for people like me, even paying 100€ for a single prototype is much more appealing than dealing with HF in my basement.
Greetings, Martin
On Mon, Mar 22, 2021 at 12:49 AM Ferenc Éger eegerferenc@gmail.com
wrote:
Hello Everyone,
Summary of the Mumble session:
Participants: eegerferenc, hsank, leviathan, tatzelbrumm
Agenda:
- LS50U/MLL: It is proposed to make a maskless exposure unit based on
JBD's uLED panel targeted at 50-100um MFS, and make it available bundled into a "DIY Microchip Fabrication Kit" containing everything needed for
a basic process. Details discussed so far: * Substrate: custom, 1-2cm rectangular "wafers" in order to make
alignment easier and to fit into a small tube furnace. Similar, but polycrystalline offerings exist for solar panels. Finding and quoting a supplier is in progress.
* Exposure: JBD uLED panel + simple projection/reduction optics +3D-printed framework for alignment, into which the chips can be slided in.
* Furnace: cheap second-hand tube furnace, or a tube furnace heaterwith retrofitted quartz tube and control electronics (backup plan). Metal-lined, graphite-lined or gas-heated types are to be avoided due to contamination issues.
* Chemicals (HF, B, P, As, acidic cleaning agents, ...): Ordered inbulk and repackaged for distribution to overcome that chemical reagent suppliers don't deal with individuals.
* Funding: Initially, crowdfund with unit price based on theexpectation of at most 2 customers (semiconductor-related crowdfunding tends to fail), then lower the UP if more customers come. Also, plan B shall be formulated.
* Legal background: form a limited-liability company to handle thestuff.
Discussion is expected to continue until next Sunday, when things are expected to be written down. Comments on mailing list or participation in the Mumble session are welcome.
Regards,
Ferenc
On 20/03/2021 09:29, Hagen SANKOWSKI wrote:
Hello List!
This is our weekly announcement for the next Mumble Sessions on Sunday
2021-03-21 @ 18:00 UTC.Please join us as usual at our Mumble Server murmur.libresilicon.com at Port 64738, the Channel is IC.
We like to follow-up our meeting minutes from mumble sessions before.
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