Custom DLP Projector for UV Lithography (Northwestern)

We are a project team under Northwestern University's IEEE Student Chapter currently developing a custom 405 nm UV DLP-based maskless lithography projector aimed at achieving sub-1 μm feature sizes for microfabrication prototyping.

Our project replaces traditional physical photomasks with a digitally programmable micromirror device (DMD), allowing real-time pattern generation for semiconductor processing research and education. The system integrates high-density PCB design for a Texas Instruments DLP UV chipset, FPGA-based video control, custom power electronics, precision optics, and motion-controlled wafer stepping. This is a fully custom system designed and built entirely by undergraduate students, under the mentorship of faculty and graduate students.

DMD (DLP301s) Assembly

Basys 3 to DLPC1438 Interface

UV Board

In the past, we've developed our very own functional Scanning Tunneling Microscope, through which we imaged HOPG (highly oriented pyrolitic graphite) at an atomic resolution.

The PCB portion of this project is particularly critical. We are designing a multi-layer, high-speed board to support fine-pitch BGA packages (201 pin), differential signal routing, and controlled impedance traces. Due to the complexity of the DLP controller and PMIC devices, good fabrication quality is essential to ensure reliable operation, and are excited about the opportunity to collaborate with PCBWay to achieve our goals!

Our budget pushes us to make use of creative techniques to achieve precision motion and patterning. For example, we are modifying https://github.com/0x23/MicroManipulatorStepper to serve as a 'wafer stepper', instead of designing or buying a more expensive piezo-based stepper. Through our project, we hope to help support the opensource semiconductor fabrication community.

We also plan to document the design process and fabrication experience, which is documented as an opensource project. Our github repository is available here: https://github.com/annegautham/IEEE_TechnicalProgram_2026.