alt.hn

4/13/2026 at 2:26:02 PM

MEMS Array Chip Can Project Video the Size of a Grain of Sand

https://spectrum.ieee.org/mems-photonics

by bookofjoe

4/13/2026 at 6:16:40 PM

This reminds me of the original patents that Magic Leap had, which involved pumping light through a single optical fiber that was wiggled by piezoelectrics into a spiral to project light (https://kguttag.com/2018/01/06/magic-leap-fiber-scanning-dis...).

by antimatter15

4/13/2026 at 7:55:57 PM

Seems what it is, but with a "waveguide" instead of an "optical fiber" wiggling about. Seems like a sneaky use of the word "projection" though, since the "surface" the image is "projected" is just what the flopping waveguide head traces, with no projection extending beyond the end of the waveguide.

by nomel

4/14/2026 at 1:04:24 AM

Yes but one could argue the frame refresh/redraw cycle of a laser projector or lcd projector is the same at slow speed. It’s not just one giant ball of light. It goes through a process and the frame itself has to redraw.

by reactordev

4/13/2026 at 6:13:02 PM

I wonder if this has implications for custom home chips/prototyping. I'm sure a big issue is vibrations but something like this could remove the need for masks at least. (again, not my area so I am clobbering terminology I am sure). It may open up home fab capabilities.

by jmward01

4/13/2026 at 6:22:06 PM

In general, hobby photo-lithography projects already use DMD/DLP projectors, and some inexpensive optics.

Huygens Optics:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_w0Z2Y5vaAQ

Sam Zeloof:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nxz_ENnmgtI

In general, getting vanity silicon made is usually much less expensive than trying to bootstrap a fab line. =3

by Joel_Mckay

4/13/2026 at 8:55:22 PM

I think half the fun for people that do things like this is figuring out how to out innovate a multi-billion dollar company so that they can make something 1/4th as good but at 1/10000th the price. I bet there are some -really- innovative people out there that would figure alternatives to a lot of the expensive parts of the process and figure out how to be able to produce 2000's level chips at home. I'm not one of them though :)

by jmward01

4/13/2026 at 11:20:08 PM

The problem is that they aren't (yet) 1/4th as good for 1/10000th of the price. Patterning is just one part of the process - and not nearly the most difficult one.

by 15155

4/13/2026 at 6:58:12 PM

I think abusing a write-off electron microscope to side step the need for masks is also an interesting idea, however, I believe acquiring wafers of sufficient quality and depositing layers to be etched could be the bigger challenge here.

by volemo

4/14/2026 at 5:59:10 AM

Hold on, if I had an electron microscope, can I just put in a decapped cheap large format photodiode under it, jack the beam current way up, and start etching trenches on it?

by numpad0

4/14/2026 at 1:36:55 PM

I don't think so: it's a microscope, not a synchrotron. :D

I meant "drawing" on a photoresist layer with a SEM and then wet-etching it. Also all silicon in a photodiode is doped, so the etched parts would be of little use, I believe.

by volemo

4/13/2026 at 7:29:55 PM

And the clean environment as a whole. That's a massive investment and there are a million ways to mess that up.

by jacquesm

4/13/2026 at 9:01:07 PM

> however, I believe acquiring wafers of sufficient quality and depositing layers to be etched could be the bigger challenge here

Definitely hard for a home fab but how about a community fab? Not necessarily a geographic community.

by bigbadfeline

4/13/2026 at 9:01:08 PM

for making research grade devices you barely need a cleanroom

by gaze

4/14/2026 at 1:26:18 AM

wafers are the easy bit.

by butvacuum

4/13/2026 at 4:03:36 PM

What is this, a movie theater for ants?

by dmitrygr

4/13/2026 at 6:32:10 PM

It has to be at least 3 times bigger than this!

by chihuahua

4/13/2026 at 4:54:50 PM

or AR glasses?

by numpad0

4/13/2026 at 4:31:39 PM

We can finally say yes to this question

by m3kw9

4/13/2026 at 6:06:29 PM

> The chip projected a roughly 125-micrometer image of the Mona Lisa.

This may seem small (barely visible as a dot to the naked eye), but that's also the geometric mean of the Planck length and the diameter of the observable universe. So average size actually.

by cubefox

4/13/2026 at 7:33:57 PM

I really can't follow your comment and I've been trying. Would you mind a longer explanation of what you're getting at here?

by jacquesm

4/13/2026 at 8:07:35 PM

They mean 125um = sqrt(a*b), where a is the Planck length* and b the size of the observable universe (I didn't verify). Implying, 125um is some sort of middle ground. *Often said to be the smallest length with physical meaning.

by venv

4/13/2026 at 9:00:04 PM

Ok, so it's a bullshit comment. Thank you. You could say this about everything that is not 'Planck length', it's about as useful as Douglas Adams' 'the universe is empty' (only he had a sense of humor).

Oh, even worse they are repeating it in different threads.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47749957

by jacquesm

4/13/2026 at 9:04:33 PM

Why are you so upset by this?

by walletdrainer

4/13/2026 at 9:16:18 PM

I'm upset at lots of things. For instance that you are still on this website after posting this:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47743276

But then again, we get anti Islam posts by prominent HN'ers as well so I guess that evens things out.

by jacquesm

4/13/2026 at 9:52:36 PM

By your own logic, shouldn’t you be banned from this site for your comments targeting the MAGA nutjobs? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46538172

Why would criticising people for their religious-adjacent views be worse than criticising people for their political views?

I’m sure you’d find your own comment reprehensible if you replaced “MAGA” with “Jewish”. But why? Both are just groups of people who choose to believe in certain things.

by walletdrainer

4/13/2026 at 10:09:47 PM

Because some of these are clear choices, others are not.

You can be critical of Israel and I'm fine with that - and I'm plenty critical of Israel myself. But to say 'Most Jews are lunatics' is absolutely beyond the pale.

You could say this in more general terms about all people that are religious but you didn't do that and FYI Jews don't generally have a choice about their Jewishness, just like you don't have any choice about which family you were born into.

You could even make the case that most religious people had no choice in their adoption of that religion, but most people have the theoretical option of letting go of their religion if they so desire, but you can not stop being a Jew. This little detail was baked into the religion and it is a serious problem for those that are Jewish and that wish to get away from it - and these people really do exist -, but they can not change their identity to a degree that they themselves would recognize as sufficient, besides, their environment usually also does not recognize it.

In the interest of furthering your knowledge about this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Off_the_derech

and

https://brill.com/display/book/edcoll/9789004331471/BP000006...

I get all this is complicated, and maybe you really can't follow this in which case my apologies but there is a significant choice between who you work for (say, Palantir, Facebook, OpenAI or Twitter) vs what family you are born into.

As for political beliefs: yes, I'm critical of those that carry water for Trump, Putin, Netanyahu and their cronies, they're out to destroy the world as we know it and if you help enable that you are imnsho part of the problem.

by jacquesm

4/13/2026 at 10:19:40 PM

> But to say 'Most Jews are lunatics' is absolutely beyond the pale.

The misquote here does not feel accidental.

I said:

> We’re not allowed to criticise Israel because most jews are lunatics that consider such criticism an antisemitic attack on their person

If “Most Jews consider criticism of Israel to be an attack on their person” is true, then it certainly follows that “Most Jews are lunatics”.

> You could even make the case that most religious people had no choice in their adoption of that religion, but most people have the theoretical option of letting go of their religion if they so desire, but you can not stop being a Jew

Yes, I am aware that some people choose to believe this. However, outside of a specific religious community people will generally not consider you to be a Jew unless you identify as such.

I personally am not religious and therefore don’t subscribe to the belief that people can’t stop being Jews.

by walletdrainer

4/14/2026 at 6:15:53 AM

Sure!

It was a joke :)

by cubefox

4/13/2026 at 8:19:04 PM

Seems like you could put a few of these on a contact lens and minimally get a small private HUD. Seems like with a few of them (or fast enough scanning speed) you could build effectively a light field to give it depth)

by jcims

4/13/2026 at 5:48:45 PM

This might be relevant for Augmented Reality headgear.

by CoolThings

4/14/2026 at 12:14:18 AM

Happy days at the ant colony.

by foruhar

4/13/2026 at 5:05:29 PM

How do you even fit a video projector onto something that small, the physics feel like they shouldn't cooperate.

by cordwainersmith

4/13/2026 at 7:57:09 PM

Sounds like this will have interesting fiber-optic implications?

by kylehotchkiss

4/13/2026 at 6:44:18 PM

This is actually getting close enough to manipulate the _phase_ of light! And doing that would allow creating true holograms.

Or alternative true augmented reality glasses that are not limited to one focal plane.

by cyberax

4/13/2026 at 6:50:34 PM

Electro-optic modulators already exist — still no StarTrek. :(

by volemo

4/13/2026 at 2:44:01 PM

Oh wait. It does have the correct title. My fruit flies are cheering.

by darfo

4/13/2026 at 5:18:47 PM

[dead]

by SilentM68

4/13/2026 at 2:40:32 PM

Cool. Now I can show videos to my fruit flies! /s

Srsly title should be "MEMS Array Chip the Size of a Grain of Sand Can Project Video"

not

"MEMS Array Chip Can Project Video the Size of a Grain of Sand"

by darfo

4/13/2026 at 5:16:04 PM

It is actually about a 0.125mm projection, not the size of the chip. But more about steering lasers, which is really what they wanted to do.

by projektfu

4/13/2026 at 6:19:43 PM

This is revolutionary. No other way to put it.

by gurumeditations

4/13/2026 at 6:30:05 PM

It certainly looks like something that will find novel applications.

by topspin