Silicon Photolithography The PCB Way

October 17, 2023 by Dan Maloney 3 Comments

[ProjectsInFlight] has been doing some fantastic work documenting his DIY semiconductor fab lately. Next up: exploring down-and-dirty photolithography methods.

If you’ve been following along with this series — and why wouldn’t you? — you’ll recall [ProjectsInFlight]’s earlier experiments, like creating oxide layers on silicon chips with a homebrew tube furnace and exploring etchants that can selectively remove them. But just blasting away the oxide layer indiscriminately isn’t really something you need to do when etching the fine features needed to fabricate a working circuit. The trouble is, most of the common photoresist solutions used by commercial fabs are unobtainium for hobbyists, leading to a search for a suitable substitute.

Surprisingly, PCB photoresist film seemed to work quite well, but not without a lot of optimization by [ProjectsInFlight] to stick it to the silicon using a regular laminator. Also in need of a lot of tweaking was the use of a laser printer to create masks for the photolithography process on ordinary transparency film, including the surprisingly effective method of improving the opacity of prints with acetone vapor. There were also extensive experiments to determine the best exposure conditions, a workable development process, and the right etchants to use. Watch the video below for a deep dive into all those topics as well as the results, which are pretty good.

There’s a lot to be said for the methodical approach that [ProjectsInFlight] is taking here. Every process is explored exhaustively, with a variety of conditions tested before settling on what works best. It’s also nice to see that pretty much all of this has been accomplished with the most basic of materials, all of which are easily sourced and pretty cheap to boot. We’re looking forward to more of the same here, as well as to see what others do with this valuable groundwork.

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A Primer For The Homebrew Game Boy Advance Scene

August 29, 2022 by Bryan Cockfield 10 Comments

As video game systems pass into antiquity, some of them turn out to make excellent platforms for homebrew gaming. Not only does modern technology make it easier to interact with systems that are now comparatively underpowered and simpler, but the documentation available for older systems is often readily available as well, giving the community lots of options for exploration and creativity. The Game Boy Advance is becoming a popular platform for these sorts of independent game development, and this video shows exactly how you can get started too.

This tutorial starts with some explanation of how the GBA works. It offered developers several modes for the display, so this is the first choice a programmer must make when designing the game. From there it has a brief explanation of how to compile programs for the GBA and execute them, then it dives into actually writing the games themselves. There are a few examples that [3DSage] demonstrates here including examples for checking the operation of the code and hardware, some simple games, and also a detailed explanation the framebuffers and other hardware and software available when developing games for this console.

While the video is only 10 minutes long, we recommend watching it at three-quarters or half speed. It’s incredibly information-dense and anyone following along will likely need to pause several times. That being said, it’s an excellent primer for developing games for this platform and in general, especially since emulators are readily available so the original hardware isn’t needed. If you’d like to build something from an even more bygone era than the early 2000s, though, take a look at this tutorial for developing games on arcade cabinets.

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Open-Source ARM Development Simplified

March 17, 2020 by Bryan Cockfield 12 Comments

The ARM series of processors are an industry standard of sorts for a vast array of applications. Virtually anything requiring good power or heat management, or any embedded system which needs more computing power than an 8-bit microcontroller is a place where an ARM is likely found. While they do appear in various personal computers and laptops, [Pieter] felt that their documentation for embedded processors wasn’t quite as straightforward as it could be and created this development board which will hopefully help newbies to ARM learn the environment more easily.

Called the PX-HER0, it’s an ARM development board with an STM32 at its core and a small screen built in. The real work went in to the documentation for this board, though. Since it’s supposed to be a way to become more proficient in the platform, [Pieter] has gone to great lengths to make sure that all the hardware, software, and documentation are easily accessible. It also comes with the Command Line Interpreter (CLI) App which allows a user to operate the device in a Unix-like environment. The Arduino IDE is also available for use with some PX-HER0-specific examples.

[Pieter] has been around before, too. The CLI is based on work he did previously which gave an Arduino a Unix-like shell as well. Moving that to the STM32 is a useful tool to have for this board, and as a bonus everything is open source and available on his site including the hardware schematics and code.

Novice Coders Can Create Classic Game Boy Games

May 22, 2019 by Bryan Cockfield 5 Comments

It takes a lot of work to build a modern video game. Typically an entire company will spend months (at least) developing the gameplay, selecting or programming an engine, and working out the bugs. This amount of effort isn’t strictly necessary for older video game systems though, and homebrew developers are quite often able to develop entire games singlehandedly for classic systems. In the past it would have taken some special software, programming knowledge, and possibly hardware, but now anyone can build games for the original Game Boy with minimal barriers of entry.

The project is known as GB Studio and allows people to develop homebrew games for the 8-bit handheld system without programming knowledge. Once built, the games can be played on any emulator or even loaded onto a cartridge and played on original hardware if a flash cart is available. Graphics can be created with anything that can create a .png image, and there are also some features that allow the game to be played over a web browser or on a mobile device.

While it seems like the gameplay is limited to RPG-style games, this is still an impressive feat, and highly useful for anyone curious about game development. It could also be an entry into more involved game programming if it makes the code of the games available to the user. It could even lead to things like emulating entire cartridges on the original hardware.

Thanks to [Thomas] for the tip!

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Hologram.io Offers Developers Free Cell Data

July 25, 2017 by Mike Szczys 68 Comments

If you’ve been thinking of adding cellular connectivity to a build, here’s a way to try out a new service for free. Hologram.io has just announced a Developer Plan that will give you 1 megabyte of cellular data per month. The company also offers hardware to use with the SIM, but they bill themselves as hardware agnostic. Hologram is about providing a SIM card and the API necessary to use it with the hardware of your choice: any 2G, 3G, 4G, or LTE devices will work with the service.

At 1 MB/month it’s obvious that this is aimed at the burgeoning ranks of Internet of Things developers. If you’re sipping data from a sensor and phoning it home, this will connect you in 200 countries over about 600 networks. We tried to nail them down on exactly which networks but they didn’t take the bait. Apparently any major network in the US should be available through the plan. And they’ve assured us that since this program is aimed at developers, they’re more than happy to field your questions as to which areas you will have service for your specific application.

The catch? The first taste is always free. For additional SIM cards, you’ll have to pay their normal rates. But it’s hard to argue with one free megabyte of cell data every month.

Hologram originally started with a successful Kickstarter campaign under the name Konekt Dash but has since been rebranded while sticking to their cellular-connectivity mission. We always like getting free stuff — like the developer program announced today — but it’s also interesting to see that Hologram is keeping up with the times and has LTE networks available in their service, for which you’ll need an LTE radio of course.

Can You Develop Film With Coffee And Vitamin C?

October 18, 2011 by Mike Szczys 25 Comments

Are you feeling a little MacGyver-ish and have access to a film camera? Perhaps you want to try developing your pictures using coffee and vitamin C instead of a traditional developing solution. [Danish Puthan Valiyandi] does a great job of walking us through the steps he took, including precise measurements, temperatures, and timings involved in achieving great results. This is probably not for the first-timers, as he does use special equipment associated with traditional developing methods.

The process uses a couple of easily obtainable materials: instant coffee, vitamin C powder, and washing soda (sodium carbonate). Once the roll of film has been exposed, it’s put onto a jig for developing (Danish does this with the lights on to make the video after the break worth watching, but you’ll need to do it in the dark). Once nestled inside of the development container, he mixes up a batch of his diy developer and agitates according to a times schedule. When the development is finished, a chemical fixer–no diy alternative used here–is added to set the film. Dry out the strips and use a scanner to digitize your work. We’re surprised by the quality of the finished product, but we shouldn’t be… he certainly knows what he’s doing.

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Ubuntu Developer Week

August 29, 2009 by Mike Szczys 3 Comments

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Next week, August 31 through September 4, is Ubuntu Developer Week. If you’ve always wanted to help out with an open source project but didn’t know how to get into it, this is your chance. The week consists of 25 one-hour sessions held interactively through IRC and led by some of the best of the Ubuntu development team. Participate in as many or as few sessions as you want. Check out the Ubuntu Developer Week page or their fancy brochure (PDF) for more information.

Want to see what it’s all about before committing to a live session? You can view the IRC logs from the January sessions. In addition to ‘Getting Started’, you may find the ‘Packaging 101’ and ‘Launchpad Bug Tracking’ session notes interesting.