Here at Hackaday, it’s a pretty safe bet that putting “World’s smallest” in the title of an article will instantly attract comments claiming that someone else built a far smaller version of the same thing. But that’s OK, because if there’s something smaller than this nearly microscopic LED blinky build, we definitely want to know about it.
The reason behind [Mike Roller]’s build is simple: he wanted to build something smaller than the previous smallest blinky. The 3.2-mm x 2.5-mm footprint of that effort is a tough act to follow, but technology has advanced somewhat in the last seven years, and [Mike] took advantage of that by basing his design on an ATtiny20 microcontroller in a WLCSP package and an 0201 LED, along with a current-limiting resistor and a decoupling capacitor. Powering the project is a 220-μF tantalum capacitor, which at a relatively whopping 3.2 mm x 1.6 mm determines the size of the PCB, which [Mike] insisted on using.
Assembling the project was challenging, to say the least. [Mike] originally tried a laboratory hot plate to reflow the board, but when the magnetic stirrer played havoc with the parts, he switched to a hot-air rework station with a very low airflow. Programming the microcontroller almost seemed like it was more of a challenge; when the pogo pins he was planning to use proved too large for the job he tacked leads made from 38-gauge magnet wire to the board with the aid of a micro hot air tool.
After building version one, [Mike] realized that even smaller components were available, so there’s now a 2.4 mm x 1.5 mm version using an 01005 LED. We suspect there’ll be a version 3.0 soon, though — he mentions that the new TI ultra-small microcontrollers weren’t available yet when he pulled this off, and no doubt he’ll want to take a stab at this again.
nothing to sneeze at.
One of the rare times I wish HAD had a “Like” button :-)
So great
The impressive part of this project is that he made his own 0.3mm PCB!
This x10!
He did this as a test project to make sure he was getting the resolution/feature size on his own homemade PCB fab procedure. Which I’d really like to see some more of.
So it’s true that covid vaccine contains microchip!
Yes. Of course. But only if you believe it.
and all those chips are being reprogrammed to make people buy Teslas!
I think you mean burn Teslas. Buy Teslas was the previous release.
No, because even if you can get a microchip small enough to travel through a needle it cannot do anything useful (or anything at all) once in the body. Just because a microchip is tiny does not mean that the necesary equipment to power it (a coin cell or such) is also small miniaturisable so as to fit within a needle, nor is the equipment it would need to be able to communicate with the outside world (RFID coil or such, these ofcourse could provide power too instead of a coin cell, but again there’ye way too big). So no, there are no microchips in vaccines, that would be a waste of microchips, they’d not be able to do anything more inside the body that they could when sitting in factory fresh SMD reels. For full disclosure I didn’t take it, but only because I had already acquired natural immunity to the disease in question, and because not taking it was a good way to protest against the immense collateral damage of lockdowns.
This whole discusion does raise one very relevant point about this very talented project, given that this LED blinky is far smaller than the equipment (battery…) it would need to power it, why make it so small. I’d be interested in hearing Mike’s reasoning, although because-I-wanted-to-try is always a great reason, for why he’s made a board which will need a power source vastly larger than it is. Thanks
Pro or anti vax aside, injected chips for pets are a super common thing and they seem to work quite well.
Any words about runtime with a single charge?
I was looking for the same, I would guess less than a minute?
Hi Edgar, it blinks for about 20 seconds.
I was wondering what the limit on “running” was. Like if the PCB mas fabbed such that the board itself could be used as a capacitor like on chip FAB. I’m certain that would hold some electricity. Maybe enough to power the ATTINY for a microsecond. Does that count?
Great. Now the glitter blinks.
This is the first time I’ve come across such a “hot air pencil”. Was not aware you could get a hot air gun that small.
I have to ask one very relevant point about this very talented project, given that this LED blinky is far smaller than the equipment (battery…) it would need to power it, why make it so small. I’d be interested in hearing Mike’s reasoning, although because-I-wanted-to-try is always a great reason, for why he’s made a board which will need a power source vastly larger than it is. Thanks
Amazing build and design – I am in awe – incredible
Very very impressive. Great to see this big achievement on such a small surface area. Looking forward to see more of these projects. Would be great to integrate a tiny sensor too.
Can you eliminate the PCB and solder the LED directly to the MCU pins?