Re: 208 B transistors !!

On 4/22/2024 1:08 AM, Terje Mathisen wrote:

BGB wrote:

On 4/21/2024 5:02 PM, MitchAlsup1 wrote:

BGB wrote:
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No information on what sorts of densities are possible; crude guess is it is roughly a ~ 133333um process, based on the assumption of a 300 dpi printer (possibly more or less).

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300 DPI is 1995 technology, I would be surprised if you could not find
4800 DPI printers. This, alone, changes the lambda by 160×.
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The stuff I was aware of, printer resolution was usually assumed to be between 72 to 300 DPI.
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Apparently (looks up stuff), inkjet typically ranges from 300 to 720 DPI (with 600 to 1200 for laser printers, and 1000 to 2400 for photo printers).
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Not sure of the DPI of a generic office-style inkjet printer (assuming one gets one of the ones that allows for refillable ink cartridges).

 I probably do more high-resolution printing than most of you, since I'm the leader of the Mapping Commision of the Norwegian Orienteering Federation.
 For any given orienteering map, we need to print very sharp (i.e. maximum contrast) lines. Both black (road edges etc) and brown (contours) lines are just 0.10mm wide, and since brown requires a CMYK mix of either 3 or 4 components, you have to start with a _very_ high resolution printer to consistently get good results.
 2400x2400 DPI is what you really need, it is available on the highest end print engines (from Xerox and others), but you also need very good software to generate visually optimal vector to raster conversions (i.e. like the industry standard Fiery RIP).
 1200x1200 laser printers are the new medium/low end standard, you can get that with A3 size paper at a reasonable price.
 Ink jet photo printers typically deliver significantly smaller dot sizes, but at far higher per page costs.
 

For printing on paper, yeah, laser printers make sense, and that is what I am using here...
But, it seems most of the printable electronics stuff, is using inkjet-printable inks rather than toner.
I had looked into it more, and it seems that most of this stuff was built around PMOS logic.
Looks like one of the dominant inks in this area is PEDOT:PSS, eg:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PEDOT:PSS
Things like N-channel inks apparently exist, but are less readily available.
So, this likely this means one would need 3 inks:
   copper or silver metallic ink;
   insulator/dialectic ink;
   something like PEDOT:PSS.
With transistors formed by layering these on top of each other, say:
   Source and Drain traces;
   P-Channel;
   Insulator;
   Gate trace.
Say, making sure to print down layers of insulator wherever one does not want traces to touch.
I guess, in the off chance I bought any of this stuff, might make sense to first experiment with trying to get traces and basic transistors to work, since probably getting digital logic mapped to this is going to be difficult (doesn't seem like there are many existing FOSS tools for this sort of thing).
Though, I guess, if one can make it look sort of like an FPGA, it is conceivably possible one could use Yosys or similar for the front-end Verilog compiler.
Say, one can try to map every possible LUT4 to a predefined pattern, and then generate a netlist of mostly LUT4's and FF's and similar (similar to an ICE40 or ECP5). Effectively treating the page like it were an FPGA. Actual place/route could drop down pre-drawn blocks of pixels, and then figure out a pattern for the routing layers.
Also seems like the relevant type of printers are more in the $200-$500 range (eg: high DPI and refillable), rather than the cheaper $30-$60 models.

Terje