This organisation contains efforts towards the creation of open-hardware Maskless Lithography Aligners. These systems are able to produce high resolution UV light patterns for use in photolithography. The aim of such hardware is to bring microfabrication into the hands of more people. While not necessarily targeting the home user, the designed systems may find application in makerspaces, small scale production or in research.
A MLA system should have the following properties:
- Pattern resolution <100um (300nm is about the practical limit for an optical system)
- XY stage with image stitching to align neighbouring exposure fields
- Camera system inline with exposure unit to align pattern on markers.
- Software to convert and use industry standard
dxforGDSIIpatterns
Initial efforts are in Project Medjed 👁️; a 'low cost' (<3000 dollar) system that targets 5μm resolution.
Project Nabu 🐉 will target the 500nm resolution target. As this order of magnitude higher resolution requires significantly more advanced hardware, this will need a lot of development time.
There are some topics that are broader than a single system/repository. Writings on such topics are contained in the openMLA wiki ➡. These are concepts that are quite general on the topic of photolithography systems.
They may be of interest if you are interested in photolithography or are interested in designing your own system.
If you are looking for a MLA system, and have the funding to get a commercial system? Some of the commercial systems below may be of interest to you. Some of the inspiration for the development of the openMLA projects comes from these systems.
- Heidelberg μMLA and MLA 150 system
- Polos NanoWriter and µPrinter
- Microlight3D smart print UV
- Raith's Picomaster series
