July 2025 · pre-alpha
The first control program
Windows Forms: a table of fields, each with its own position and exposure time — dose sweeps set up by hand.
Home · Prototype 1.0
Desktop maskless lithography
The machine that proved the idea: a DMD projection lithograph that exposes resist on real wafers straight from a GDSII file. Enclosed desktop unit, 440 nm LED, closed-loop XY stage on servo drives and optical scales, a camera looking through the same objective.
Built and working
How it works
A programmable photomask on a moving stage
How it works
A TI DLP4710 DMD — 1920 × 1080 micromirrors — is a programmable photomask. Each frame of the layout is projected through a microscope objective onto the resist; the stage steps and stitches frames into one continuous pattern.
Results
Made on this machine
Photographs, not simulations: exposed and developed on Prototype 1.0.
Precision from calibration
Sub-micron precision here does not come from granite and air bearings. The machine measures its own geometry and illumination with a camera in the wafer plane and cancels them on every field; the software refuses to expose with an uncalibrated objective.
GDSII layoutIn resist
5 mm
Layout → resist
Design against result
Drag the divider. On the left is the GDSII file that went to the machine; on the right, a photograph of what came out, corrected for perspective so the two line up.
The silicon chip is 25 × 25 mm; the layout on it, a logo with captions and four dithered pictures, takes 20 × 20 mm. One exposure job.
The machine exposes one DMD frame at a time: this chip is 1 869 fields of 0.25 × 0.38 mm, placed side by side by the stage. Switch the picture to Exposure fields and back, and look for the seams.
What ends up in resist depends on development as much as on exposure: developer, time and temperature all change the result. These are samples from process tuning. Works by Magritte and Escher are blurred on both sides: they are still under copyright.
Datasheet
Target specifications
Prototype 2.0. The optical core and software are carried over from Prototype 1.0.
- Feature size
- 0.7–1 µm typicalmin 0.4 µm, optics & resist dependent
- Exposure area
- 100 × 100 mmscalable to 200 × 200 mm
- Light source
- LED, 440 nm405 nm option · no laser
- XY repeatability
- 0.2 µmclosed loop on optical scales
- Position feedback
- 100 nm scalesdown to 2.5 nm option
- Throughput
- ~2.8 mm²/min @ 1 µm10×; ~0.9 mm²/min @ 0.5 µm (20×)
- Light modulator
- TI DLP4710 DMD1920 × 1080 micromirrors
- Objectives
- 10× / 0.5 · 20× / 0.75interchangeable
- Substrates
- Si up to 4″ · glass · PCB
- Travel X / Y / Z
- ≥100 / ≥100 / 40 mm
- Design input
- GDSII nativeDXF — tuning
- Mounting
- 25 mm grid, M6×1optical-breadboard standard
In development
- Layer-to-layer alignmentrotary vacuum chuck + alignment workflow in software
- Automatic objective changemotorized swap between 10× and 20×
- 405 nm LED optionfor sub-0.5 µm work and broader resist compatibility
- 2.5 nm optical scalesfor repeatability in the 25–50 nm class
Today it is a single-layer tool: expose, develop, done. If your process needs aligned multilayer now, ask me about the timeline.
Applications
Where it fits
Electronics & PCB
Fine-line boards and flex circuits, straight from the layout — same-day iteration.
Microfluidics
Channel networks, master molds for PDMS, on-chip electrodes.
MEMS & sensors
Resist patterns for etching, lift-off and plating on Si up to 4″.
Photonics
Gratings, diffractive elements, waveguide test structures.
Battery R&D
On-chip test cells, microelectrode platforms, microbatteries.
Education & labs
No laser class, compact, enclosed — real workflows from GDSII to wafer.
Progress
How it got here
A year of iterations. The pre-alpha ran on a different projector with a first program written in Windows Forms; Prototype 1.0 got its own stage, its own software and a stitched exposure process.
Microscope, ×2
July 2025 · pre-alpha
First developed well arrays
Test arrays in resist, each exposed in a single projected field with no stitching, labelled with its own exposure settings.
Stage rework
Into the milling shop
The XY stage on a milling machine: the rotary platform fitted and the mounting plane machined level.
2026
Prototype 1.0
Its own stage on servo drives and optical scales, the QtLithoCAN software, autofocus and a height map, jobs stitched across whole wafers — everything above on this page.
A test chip made of 1 869 exposure fields shows no visible seams.
Partnership
Looking for a manufacturing partner and investor
On the table: a working Prototype 1.0, the Prototype 2.0 design, full documentation and in-house software. A partner brings production, supply chain and market access; deal structure and investment size are open. Demonstrations and sample exposures by arrangement.