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3D printing is hype but beyond a broad assertion that it would be cheaper for high performance LRIP devices I don't feel like a case for it being better than cu

3D printing is hype but beyond a broad assertion that it would be cheaper for high performance LRIP devices I don't feel like a case for it being better than current manufacturing techniques is made in the article. They also completely neglect the fact that you can 3D print complex sub micron structures today using a FIB (a common semiconductor tool) and the technology to do so has existed for over 30 years. It hasn't taken over yet for a reason.

alted 6y ago
Both FIB deposition and its cousin Focused Electron Beam-Induced Deposition (FEBID) are pretty nifty; they can cut/add materials down to maybe 1nm (!) resolution. However, they're extremely slow: they can only affect a single spot at a time and move at maybe only 100nm/s movement, so patterning a useful circuit may take days; it's mostly useful for research work. I don't think I've seen anyone figure out the chemistry to use it to print doped semiconductors, so transistors might not be doable anyway. Really the only other sub-micrometer 3D printing category right now is two-photon lithography (shine a laser to cure a liquid resin into a solid, like common resin 3D printing), which can generally only use a single, even-more-specialized-than-required-for-inkjet material---almost always an insulating polymer---for an entire structure.
bluGill 6y ago
What quantity? With a traditional fab process it costs a million dollars to create the setup for your chip, but once you have that the cost of each chip is five cents. I suspect that there is basically no setup costs for this but each chips probably runs in the range of 100 each to make (I'm guessing here, but it looks to me like there is a lot of labor watching the printer). If you need only a few chips the printed process is cheaper, if you need millones the traditional process is cheaper.

alted 6y ago

Both FIB deposition and its cousin Focused Electron Beam-Induced Deposition (FEBID) are pretty nifty; they can cut/add materials down to maybe 1nm (!) resolution. However, they're extremely slow: they can only affect a single spot at a time and move at maybe only 100nm/s movement, so patterning a useful circuit may take days; it's mostly useful for research work. I don't think I've seen anyone figure out the chemistry to use it to print doped semiconductors, so transistors might not be doable anyway. Really the only other sub-micrometer 3D printing category right now is two-photon lithography (shine a laser to cure a liquid resin into a solid, like common resin 3D printing), which can generally only use a single, even-more-specialized-than-required-for-inkjet material---almost always an insulating polymer---for an entire structure.

bluGill 6y ago

What quantity? With a traditional fab process it costs a million dollars to create the setup for your chip, but once you have that the cost of each chip is five cents. I suspect that there is basically no setup costs for this but each chips probably runs in the range of 100 each to make (I'm guessing here, but it looks to me like there is a lot of labor watching the printer). If you need only a few chips the printed process is cheaper, if you need millones the traditional process is cheaper.