Plan-of-record · 2026-06-02 · OWFabricator / Nano

Build chips in
three dimensions.

5-decade feature span 11 primitives · one stage in development sibling: PCB

The OWFabricator / Nano treats microfabrication the way 3D printing already works — additive, subtractive, multi-material, on one moving stage. It brings the full set of microscale primitives, every one shipping today, into a single appliance — so you can build structures in the third dimension that flat lithography was never meant to reach.

TRUE-3D — NOT PAINT-BY-LAYERS head genuine z-axis freedom · vertical interconnect built in place
The vertical via is grown, not etched-and-filled. The chip becomes a 3D-printed object.
Treat microscale fabrication as a multi-mode 3D-printing problem, and the chip becomes a printed object — helices, buried photonics, vertical interconnect grown in place. This is the appliance that builds it.
the paradigm11 primitivesfeature span appliancewhat's possiblewhere it works

Planar, vs. the inverse stack

PLANAR — 2D paint-by-numbers vias = etched holes filled by the next step no genuine z-axis freedom TRUE-3D — additive + subtractive, one stage helices · buried channels · embedded photonics structures only true-3D builds

Four shifts converged by 2026

A 5-decade feature span ships commercially (0.8 mm conductive FDM → 100 nm 2-photon DLW). The framing is industry-validated (Atomic Semi: "a fab using 3D printers, microscopes, e-beam writers"). AI-NRE-zero makes multi-mode integration cost nothing. The Bambu playbook — cartridge, scrubber, untethered — is proven.

The object it builds

A Bambu-class enclosed appliance combining 8–12 additive + subtractive + photopolymer + metal + dielectric primitives, on a shared 5-axis stage, cartridge-fed and scrubbed, from sub-µm to 50 µm — every mode of fabrication in one machine, working on one part.

Eleven primitives, one stage

additive subtractive transform — each already ships commercially or has an open-source BOM. Every one has a recipe + controller in ofpga-fab.

PrimitiveFeatureMaterial / actionClass
DMD maskless lithography1–5 µmphotoresist patterningadd
ALD thin film1 Å/cycleHfO₂ / Al₂O₃ / TiN / Cuadd
Aerosol jet10 µmAg-NP / Cu-NP conductoradd
Super inkjet (EHD)0.5–1 µmsub-µm metal / polymeradd
ECAM electroplating33–200 µmCu / Ni / Au, room tempadd
2-photon DLW100 nmtrue-3D photopolymeradd
Conductive FDM0.8 mmCu-PLA backboneadd
RIE<100 nmanisotropic gas-phase removalsub
ALEsub-nm/cycleatomic-layer removalsub
Femtosecond ablation5–50 µmcold ablation, no heat-affected zonesub
RTA + scCO₂low-tempanneal + dry developtransform

Plus VHF, the shared 5-axis stage, in-situ height metrology, a 3D structured-light scanner, and a probe station. Shared additive primitives carry straight into the PCB variant at coarser scale.

Five decades on one stage

From a millimetre conductive trace to a hundred-nanometre voxel — every primitive plotted on a log scale. Additive and subtractive, all commercially available, all on the same machine.

1 mm100 µm10 µm1 µm100 nm10 nm FDM ECAM aerosol DMD super-inkjet 2-photon femto RIE ALE FEATURE SIZE — every primitive ships in 2026
One stage spans what used to take a whole lab of separate tools.

Appliance architecture

Shared 5-axis stage

Every primitive — additive, subtractive, metrology — operates on one workpiece in place. The part never leaves the chamber; tool-change replaces the lab's machine-to-machine handoff.

ProcessGraph scheduler

A partial-order scheduler owns process composition: which primitive runs when, with in-situ height metrology closing the loop between deposition and removal. Shared with the PCB variant.

Cartridges + scrubber

Resists, inks, metal precursors, photopolymers as cartridge consumables; an integrated scrubber handles gas-phase chemistry. Universal AC + battery, untethered. The Bambu playbook at fab scope.

In-situ metrology

Height mapping + a 3D structured-light scanner + a probe station verify each layer before the next — the closed loop that makes multi-mode composition reliable.

What becomes possible

Target devices that show what multi-mode 3D unlocks — each a composition of the primitives above, each reaching into the third dimension.

analog

Vertical AcousticMesh stack

A 3D acoustic sensing mesh built layer-on-layer with vertical interconnect — the analog front-end stacked in volume.

photonic

Embedded 3D photonic waveguide network

True-3D polymer waveguides routed through the volume via 2-photon DLW — optical interconnect drawn in three dimensions.

hybrid

Vertical analog translinear stack

Stacked translinear analog compute with embedded passives — density from the third dimension, not the node.

Built on proven ground

Every mode the OWFabricator brings together already exists — proven, characterized, shipping. Its contribution is the unification: all of them on one stage, working on one part.

A validated paradigm

Industry is already building toward software-defined fabrication, and the momentum is real — Atum Works, Fabric8Labs, Atomic Semi, Texas Microsintering and others are proving the direction. The OWFabricator carries it to its natural form: one enclosed, multi-mode machine.

Proven primitives

Two-photon DLW (Nanoscribe), aerosol jet (Optomec), ECAM (Fabric8Labs), EHD inkjet (SIJ), ALD, femtosecond ablation — each ships commercially today. The OWFabricator composes them onto one stage, and AI-zero design cost means the integration is free; only atoms cost money.

Where it goes to work

When every mode of microfabrication lives on one bench, the structures that needed a national lab become an afternoon's work — right where the research happens.

Research labs

Photonic, MEMS, analog, and quantum-adjacent teams build true-3D structures in-house — no shuttle, no queue, no shipping a design to a fab.

Pattern-first designers

Design from the math, then build in the substrate where it belongs — the Periodic Stack made physical, on your own stage.

Sovereign & onshore

A complete microfab capability that fits in a room — domestic, self-contained, and ownable by a team rather than a nation.

the value
Every mode is proven; the OWFabricator's gift is to unify them and place them where the work happens — so building in three dimensions becomes ordinary.