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Start the Presses: Printable Circuits Nearly Ready

Posted by timothy on from the roll-'em dept.

akookieone writes: "MIT Tech Review has an article on Rolltronics (first appearing in /. a year ago). Seems they can now print circuits 10 micrometers across, and are thinking they could 'very shortly' move from R&D to production."

4 of 101 comments (clear)

  1. The next step by mgv · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This sort of technology could have a myriad of uses.

    For example:

    I can just see how Steve Jobs (who loves form with function) could use this type of technology to get away from the beige box a step further. You could print out the computer on the back of the screen, or into the monitor stand. Then again, he has almost done that with the new iMac's anyway.

    PDA's could get alot smaller.

    Also, it (presumably) gets away from alot of issues with size of circuits. Traditional intergrated circuits benefit from small size as they have not only use lower voltages and operate faster, but also have a lower likely hood of defects. Each silicon wafer may have a few pinpoint defects, but each one takes out the whole chip. Smaller chips mean a smaller percentage loss rate.

    Presumably this technology is resistant to such faults (or it would be pretty useless at the sizes of sheets of newspaper). This could mean very large integrated circuits without the need for circuit boards as such. In other words, shrinking a whole motherboard down to a large integrated circuit.

    While the current technology is still at a 10 micron stage, it could still have benefit if applied to the idea of printing a whole computer rather than just printing a CPU and soldering it in.

    Also, I would presume that this is first generation technology, and should reduce below 10 microns fairly easily.

    Just a thought or two.

    Michael

    --
    There is no cryptographic solution to the problem where the intended receiver and the attacker are the same entity.
  2. Cool technology by hattig · · Score: 5, Insightful
    This is great for all those applications that don't care about GHz level speeds (or even speeds in the MHz really) or small size transistors. Like TFTs, OLEDs, etc, or low power computing.

    And great for people who want to play with circuits, but don't have a way to fab their own chips. Which is pretty much all of us. We can now go along and make our own Z80 and 6502 derivatives running at a slower speed then the original, but very light and plasticy. Sounds like great fun.

    Probably good for verification of electronic circuits - being slow, you can monitor things very easily. Being large you can see the circuit and attach probes easily. Being cheap you can do this in a small business should this technology make it into cheap units (cheap being in the 10's of thousands of pounds printing onto 3" wide rolls of plastic). Maybe in a few years anyway.

    I wonder if they will ever get the printing down to the micron level, or below, given time? Would be hard I imagine, but imagine a 50MHz stamp... what the purpose would be I don't know, but where theres a technology, theres a product...

    1. Re:Cool technology by Rentar · · Score: 5, Funny
      And great for people who want to play with circuits, but don't have a way to fab their own chips. Which is pretty much all of us. We can now go along and make our own Z80 and 6502 derivatives running at a slower speed then the original, but very light and plasticy. Sounds like great fun.

      I don't know which fact I should find more alerting:

      • That I read a site where ppl post such things
      • That I understand what you are saying
      • That I agree on the "Sounds like great fun."-part.
  3. Great by foo+fighter · · Score: 5, Funny

    Like I don't have enough printer support headaches at work already.

    I can just imagine the calls I'll be getting from my boss now:

    "Foo Fighter, my printer is smearing my traces all over the place. Could you come by and clean it so I can finish printing my new Palm?"

    Or:

    "Foo, I was printing my PowerPoint slide show, but the headlines are blinking red instead of blue. And the line chart on page three only animates halfway, then stops. Could you get over here right away and fix this?"

    Or:

    "Those nanobots I printed and released into the fish tank to monitor polution yesterday have eaten my goldfish. Could you come up with some new nanobots to eat the bad nanobots?"

    Great. Just Great.

    --
    obviously no deficiencies vs. no obvious deficiencies